In Which I Watch A Bookworm Blossom

When Connor's nurse woke him up this morning for school, he started crying, signed "no, tired" and promptly went back to sleep.  This was not a wonderful start to the day.  I told her to let him doze and then woke him up myself about twenty minutes later.  He made a really sad face when I told him it was time to get up, so I brought him into the living room and snuggled with him until he absolutely had to get ready for school.  After that he was okay-- apparently morning snuggles solve many, many problems.

He ended up having a good day at school, and then he had an absolutely fantastic physical therapy session.  He's really getting the hang of the adaptive vehicle he's been driving around, and it was pretty cool to see him starting to figure out how to stop it at just the right place so that he could see what was going on.  He was really interested in the other kids' therapy sessions, and just wanted to stop the car and watch to see what they were doing.  It was cute.  

Eden had a good day as well; she came home in a really great mood after finishing all her homework at the after-school tutoring assistance program she goes to every Wednesday and finding out that she was the only student who had perfect attendance there.  She came right over and gave me a big hug where I was on the couch, and then plopped down beside me to do her reading for the day.  We read out loud together every day; she used to read out loud to me for twenty minutes, but we now each read a chapter, which can take considerably more time.  She just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and enjoyed it so much that we've started a second book by Roald Dahl: The BFG.  This happens to be one of my favorite children's books of all time, as it is so deliciously dark.  Eden and I are both enjoying it immensely.

She's also picking up books and looking through them on her own now; especially the many adoption-related biographies I have on the shelves.  Currently she's leafing through Cindy Champnella's The Waiting Child, and while I'm not sure how much of it she's actually taking in, she's spent quite a bit of time on it.  

When she first came home she didn't really care for books at all (in Thai or English) because she said the subject matter was boring.  Apparently the books that were available to her in Thailand were not very inspiring-- other than the Harry Potter series, which she read in its entirety.  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was the first book we've read together where she was disappointed that the chapter was over and really wanted to know what happened next.  I can't tell you how amazing it is for me to watch her begin to fall in love with books.

Good thing I have about 1300 in the house.  I don't think she's going to run out of reading material any time soon.

Of course, it probably helps that we have no television reception and her Internet use is limited to two hours on weekdays and three on weekends-- provided she has her homework, chores, and of course her reading with me done.  Boredom is a good motivator for reading.  Still, I'm thrilled to see her starting to open that door; there are so many wonderful books out there I can't wait to share with her!

~Jess

In Which Connor Plays Hard And Eden Sees The Seasons

The kids both had pretty good days today; I used my respite care time to take Eden out for a little mother-daughter time while Connor enjoyed listening to music and playing on his rocking horse at home.  He was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day and went down quickly, which I'm happy about.  The quad rugby game tomorrow might be loud, and he always has fewer sensory issues in regards to loud noises if he's well rested.

Recently I made a questionable parenting decision and introduced Eden to donuts, and she has now decided that they are her new favorite treat.  So we went out and ate donuts at four in the afternoon, because hey, any time is a good time for donuts.  Then we did a bit of shopping and headed home.

I finally took down the pine wreath on our door today and started decorating for spring; even though we've still got nearly a month until the season is here it's really starting to feel like it's coming up soon!  Eden's been noticing all the bulbs pushing up in the garden-- last year she was too overwhelmed to really notice the changing season.  

In Thailand they have three seasons: hot and wet, hot and dry, and slightly cooler.  And by 'slightly  cooler,' I mean only ninety degrees.  So the whole concept of the seasons changing is pretty fascinating for her.  She also lived in a pretty urban area before she joined our family, and I don't think she had a lot of opportunities to notice things like new growth on plants or the habits of local wildlife because there was very little of that.  

She's getting to know our local hummingbird, Gus, very well because he's always more demanding in the winter time.  Today when Eden and I left the house, Gus was sitting on the top of our dwarf Japanese maple only inches from our front walk.  He was all puffed up and looked extremely put out that his feeder had run low.  We all eyed each other for a bit while he scolded us, and then he flew up to the top of a cherry tree and let us pass.  There are no hummingbirds in Thailand, so Eden thinks he's pretty amazing.  I'm so glad I get to share this sort of thing with her!

But close encounters with hummingbirds aside, my girl is thoroughly tired of winter by this point and has announced that fall is her favorite season so far because it's "a little bit hot, but not a lot hot."  

We'll see what she thinks of spring this time around!

~Jess

In Which Eden Has A Birthday

Eden turned sixteen today!

She requested lasagna and lemon bars for her special birthday dinner-- is this kid American or what?  She specifically requested made-from-scratch lasagna, though, so I spent about half the day making it, because I am insane.  It tasted delicious, but I have to say that lasagna out of the freezer section is pretty good too and doesn't involve a ridiculous amount of preparation time.

Also since I made the sauce first and then cooked the noodles before assembling everything, it smelled like lasagna in my house for the entire day and I basically wanted to forget putting it together and simply stuff the pot directly into my mouth.  Garfield and I have a lot in common.

So after school and physical therapy, my parents came over and we ate, chatted, opened presents and then played a rousing game of Chicken Foot before bedtime.  Overall I think she enjoyed herself.  We'll be having a birthday party for her on Saturday and we're bringing a snack to her swim practice tomorrow, so it's like a whole week of birthday celebration for her!  I don't think she minds.

I spent a little quiet time thinking about Eden's birth parents last night-- that's the one day when I can be absolutely sure they're thinking about Eden too.  With the time difference between here and Thailand, Eden's birthday technically happened yesterday over there.  I'm sure that day holds a lot of painful memories for them.  I think of them often-- especially Eden's birth mother-- and hope they somehow know that our shared daughter is safe and growing up well.  It's not likely we'll ever meet, and it's entirely Eden's decision whether or not she chooses to seek them out at some point in her life, but I wish them peace, wherever they might be.

So, onward and upward.  Here's to sixteen!   I can't wait to see what amazing things our girl does with the next year.

~Jess

In Which Sweet Sixteen Is Fast Approaching And I Kill More Trees

We planned Eden's birthday party for this weekend today; she turns sixteen tomorrow!  She has no interest in driving any time soon, which I am extremely thankful for, but sixteen is still a huge milestone with or without a license.

She's growing up so fast!

We received her new birth certificate in the mail last week, so I'll be running that stuff down to the adoption agency soon and then starting the process of getting her citizenship taken care of as well as changing her name on her military ID, school records, etc. 

It was pretty strange to see our names listed as her parents instead of her birth parents, and while I'm really happy that we've got her new birth certificate it also felt really strange and made me a bit uneasy, like we were trying to rewrite history to erase her first parents or something.  While I know that the birth certificate is mostly a formality and a sign of our adoption, I still wish they were listed on the form somewhere too.

Anyway, while her adoption is now finalized, children from Thailand enter the country on an IR-4 visa, so her citizenship isn't automatic (a good explanation of this problem can be found here).  It will add yet another chunk of paperwork to our giant file on the adoption, but it's really important to make sure we complete it before she turns 18, or she'll have to take the citizenship test.  That would stink! 

Also we'd like to travel back to Thailand sometime in the next few years to visit, and we need to have her US passport before we do that.  So while it's a hassle, I'll fill out the darn paperwork and get the ball rolling.

~Jess

In Which We Have A Daughter For Keeps

We're officially a family of four!

I'm so, so happy to announce that today, just after nine in the morning, we stood before a judge and finalized our adoption forever.  It was an emotional and jubilant day, and I'm so, so glad we've finally gotten there!

We were all a bit nervous-- Eden in particular-- as we headed into the court room.  The judge was fantastic, however, and put us all at ease by trying out some Thai on us!  It turns out he'd recently traveled to Thailand, so he knew a few words.

We were sworn in, confirmed that we wanted finalize, and Eden told everyone that she wanted to be adopted by us.  The judge made the big decree with a smile on his face; it was obvious he loved presiding over adoptions!  Then our pastor, who was kind enough to accompany us to the court room on our big day, said a few lovely words.  After that I tried to say something about how proud and happy I was to see this day, and instead managed to cry instead.  Oh well!

My parents came with us, and it was so nice to have them there in the court room with us to share in our joy as our family was confirmed in the eyes of the law.  Eden's name has been legally changed now to the full name she chose for herself, and we can now move on to the next step (yes, there are still more steps to the adoption process) and apply for her U.S. citizenship.

So we've declared today to be our official "Family Day," and we plan to celebrate it every year.

I'm so glad we're a family forever!

~Jess

In Which We Have A Go Away Day

A year ago today, I sat in a metal chair in an airy room north of Bangkok, waiting to see my daughter for the first time.  It doesn't seem possible that it's been a whole year since I met her, but at the same time it seems like it's been forever.  I remember that I was so nervous I had to hide my hands under the table to keep them from shaking.  I remember her being just as terrified.

Some people refer to the anniversary of the first meeting of their child as their "Gotcha" day, but I really don't care for that term.  Eden calls it her "Go Away" day, because she actually told me in Thai that first day that I needed to go away-- she was not happy about me being there.  I think the name, while she was teasing about it when she decided that's what we'll call it, is pretty appropriate.  It was the day she went away-- from her home, her beloved caregivers and friends, towards a life with strangers in another country.

I think a lot of people visualize the kids who wait for adoption as being overjoyed once the day finally comes, running into their new parents' arms and never looking back.  I don't think that actually happens very often, especially with older kids.  And rightfully so-- our daughter was leaving behind everything and everyone she'd ever known; why should she be happy about that?  We knew a lot more about Eden than she knew about us, and it was our choice to adopt her.  She didn't have a full understanding at the time of what adoption would entail, and I think that if she'd realized at the time that it meant moving to a new place she might never have consented.

Obviously things worked out, and she's doing beautifully.  We're so, so glad she's here!   But while we did acknowledge the anniversary today, talked about it and how far we've come, we chose not to have a celebration.  While it was an incredibly exciting day for me, for our daughter it was quite possibly one of the worst, most terrifying days of her life.  We'll probably mark our adoption finalization every year as our "Family Day" instead, as hopefully that will be a far happier memory for her.

Can it really have been a year already, though?  So glad she's here!

~Jess

In Which I Get A Break

Our respite care worker came over after school and I was able to get quite a bit of cleaning and laundry done; the house was looking a bit rough.  It's so nice to have someone else entertaining the little guy while I'm home.  I love spending time with the little guy, but I'd forgotten just how much I could get done around here when I wasn't spending every five minutes entertaining him. 

Eden even got into the cleaning bug too; she spruced up her bathroom and put away all the dishes so we'd have time for a card game before dinner.  I took her out for Thai food and some one-on-one time as a special treat, since she'd had such a good week.  She chatted with me over her larb about whether or not she should try out for the school play and her upcoming field trip with her swim team. 

Her English is now to the point where she can really start to carry on a conversation, which is great!  I love hearing more about what's going on in her daily life, and I'm going to cherish every conversation we have about things like school, since it's probably only a matter of time before she figures out that having long conversations with her mom isn't "cool." 

~Jess

In Which We Do Our Best To Balance

We had a super, super busy day today!  We had church, and then while Eden practiced for the Christmas play, Connor and I ran home and made some asparagus for a potluck, which happened right after practice was over.  We stayed until nearly three in the afternoon, and then went home so the Little Miss could finish some work on a school project.  Then we headed out to get her a new backpack, since the holes in her old one have gotten two big to cover with duct tape.  This is her third backpack this year; the kid's hard on the things!  Hopefully this one will be sturdy enough to last her a while.

Connor had two seizures today but otherwise seemed to be feeling pretty well.  I think these were probably of the 'every two weeks or so I must have a seizure' variety; I swear he schedules the things.  If he starts getting sick we'll know otherwise, but so far so good.

We had to choose between going to the potluck and going to the annual Loi Krathong celebration at the local wat.  I let Eden decide what she wanted to do this year, and she opted to go to the potluck since it was indoors and it was raining and very cold outside (the festival is held outdoors).  I suggested that we have our own celebration at home if she didn't want to go to the festival, but she said she would rather not.  It's been tough trying to balance activities with the Thai community here with the other many things Eden has going on; I want to make sure she has those connections, but I also don't want to force that sort of thing on her and right now she's not all that interested.

I think right now she's more concerned with fitting into our immediate community, and she's put making connections with other Thai Americans on the back burner.  I suspect she sees being Thai as being 'different' from most of the people around her, and she wants to focus on blending in as much as possible.  I hope, however, that she'll eventually want to take part in events with the the Thai community again.  I won't push her, but I'll keep presenting opportunities and letting her know that our whole family enjoys participating in Thai cultural events and holidays.  We'll be traveling back to Thailand in a couple of years to visit; maybe that will spark an interest for her again.

She's retaining all of her Thai with no trouble though, which is a very good thing.  We want her to be able to travel between Thailand and America and feel like she can fit in wherever she is, and language is such a fundamental part of that process.  I've read so many essays about how many internationally adopted children who lose their native language later feel that they don't fit well in either America or the country of their birth, and while there's no way that we can completely avoid this issue we'd like to make sure Eden is as comfortable as possible balancing between her birth country and her new nation.

~Jess

In Which The Kids Seesaw

For the past three days Connor hasn't thrown up once or had a single seizure!  I'm pretty excited about that, as I've been running through a lot of oxygen and laundry detergent around here.  We don't think the little guy was sick; it was probably his body adjusting to his new medication that's been giving him some trouble. I'm hoping that this lovely trend continues!

He and Ellen had an impromptu musical session today involving a drum (Connor) and an ice cream container that was extremely cute and left them both grinning ear-to-ear.  It was really sweet to see their little heads pressed together-- one jet black and the other so blond it almost looks white.  Ellen has an incredible amount of patience for her brother and he absolutely adores her.  I'm so glad they're getting along so well!

I'm sorry to say that Ellen is having a difficult time right now.  She's doing a lot of grieving (which is completely understandable) and is spending a lot of time expressing her considerable anger and frustration.  I'm not going to go into any details on here as I want to respect her privacy, but she's definitely hit a bit of a rough spot right now.  It's really hard to see her struggling, knowing that while we can empathize with her, there's nothing we can do to truly understand what she's going through or to make those feelings go away for her right now.  Being a teenager is rough enough without throwing all the stuff she's dealing with on top of the pile.  We'll keep giving her reassurance that things will eventually get better and continue to help her work through her feelings during this time of emotional upheaval. 

I restocked my chocolate supply and then took a long bubble bath with a book while the kids were in school today, which was not a bad way to spend an hour or so.  I figure that the less stressed out I am, the better equipped I am to help my kids out when they're having issues.  Luckily the kids seem to be alternating who's having a rough time of it, so I'm not dealing with both of them imploding at once yet.  I have no doubt we'll eventually add that no-doubt fun experience to our list at some point, but I'm glad they're easing Jer and I into this whole parenting two children thing! 

~Jess

In Which We Do All The Things

I'm going to start trying to get up a bit early so I can blog.  I have the unfortunate problem that I like to be alone to write so I can do it uninterrupted, which is why I used to do it right before bed.  Now, however, I have a kid who won't go to bed until I do.  She knows when I go to bed because she's currently sleeping in mine.  This makes for a lot of early nights.  So if I want alone time right now, I have to sneak out while she's asleep. 

Ellen isn't a big fan of spending any time by herself right now, which is understandable.  This is a kid who had literally never been by herself before leaving Thailand, and so going from a large orphanage to our tiny household and having to spend some of that time alone is a big deal for her.  And of course, since I need to be eyes-on with Connor whenever he's awake, I'm used to having very little time to myself.  I didn't realize just how much I crave and need that bit of alone time in the evening to center myself (and do things like blog) until I didn't have it any more.

So I'm going to be making an effort to shift my blogging and sleeping habits and get up a bit early to write and have some time to myself.  Right now while the kids are in school that time is pretty easy to find.  It's when the summer gets here that I'll need to get creative!  With Jer in school full-time, the kiddos will be spending pretty much all of their waking hours with me.  Hopefully I can establish some habits that will allow me to have that time to myself, so that I can sit down, drink a quiet cup of tea and catch you all up on what's going on around here.

For the most part things are going well!  On Tuesday, Ellen is going to what will probably be her last appointment for a little while, to the eye doctor.  Apparently she saw an eye doctor when she was four years old and was given glasses, but when she outgrew them she didn't get any more.  The nurse at her school shot me an e-mail the other day telling me that Ellen's eyesight on their low-tech screening was about 30/50.  We suspect she has a bit of strabismus in her left eye too, which is really common among kids with her type of cerebral palsy.  So she'll be going in to get her eyes checked.  She says that if she needs to wear something she wants contacts.

She'll also be getting an ankle foot orthotic (AFO) for her left foot, which rolls in quite a bit when she walks.  She comes down pretty hard on that foot because her left leg is shorter than her right, and so the problem is slowly getting worse.  Thankfully, an AFO should be able to help correct those issues quite a bit.  She wasn't enthusiastic about the idea of an AFO, which I'm not surprised by at all once she described the ones she wore as a kid, which were those heavy metal over-the-knee braces that I'm pretty sure they stopped making after about the 70s.  Once she learned, though, that the AFO would be similar to Connor's and would help prevent her from needing surgery later she was much more okay with the idea.

Connor is doing well; the new seizure medication seems to be helping.  He had a nasty round of seizures a few days ago that seemed to correspond with a short stomach bug, but then he was fine.  We've managed to miss the big norovirus outbreak up here so far, which I am extremely thankful for!  I'm not ready to figure out the One Child Sick And One Child Well situation yet, let alone navigate the whole glorious Mom Is Sick And Everyone Else Is Fine thing.  I've included an only moderately blurry picture of him in a colorful outfit and his leg extension braces to make up for not blogging in a while.  As you can see, he got a haircut and is rapidly advancing to the Handsome Not-So-Little Boy stage of proceedings.  Sigh.  Oh, and here's a picture of a moose.  Because you know, it's a moose.

We've done a TON of other stuff this week that I'm not going to blog about because it would take way too long, which is what happens when I don't blog every day. Ellen picked out an American name she wants to legally change her name to, we cooked a meal together in the kitchen for the first time, Connor is going to be in a drumming performance, we took a trip to Northwest Trek (hence the moose), Ellen tried out Girl Scouts. . . the list goes on.  Things are decidedly not dull around here.  But if I tried to blog about all of it now, this thing would be 80 bajillion pages long.  I hate that I'm not writing all of this down so I can remember it later.  So that's motivation for me to get back to writing!

~Jess

In Which We Take The Plunge

Connor only had three seizures today, so we're moving in the right direction.  Hopefully as we continue to titrate up towards his full therapeutic dose we'll see his seizures start to taper off.  So far we haven't seen a lot of side effects as far as his new med goes, though he did throw up quite a bit today. 

Ellen had her first swim meet here, and she did very well!  At first she didn't want to go, but as I dragged her to it anyway and as I expected once she got there she threw herself into it.  I'm starting to know her moods and figure out a little bit about what makes her tick, and I've noticed that she's not a huge fan of new situations (though she almost always ends up having a blast once she gives them a go).  I think this was her first time racing with typical kids, and she was pretty nervous about it.  Everybody cheered for her and she beat her best times in all of her races, so by the end of the night she was really enjoying herself. 

It was neat to hear the other kids cheering for Ellen and wishing her good luck; as her English has been improving and her obviously outgoing character has started shining through I've started noticing that more and more kids are saying hello to her at swimming and school.  She's started mentioning friends in her classes, and it's really nice to see that kids are being helpful and welcoming.  I've been pretty worried about her, since in my opinion middle school kids sometimes can be the Meanest People On The Planet due to their hormones grabbing the reins and taking over from common sense, but so far so good! 

~Jess

In Which I Plant A Tree And Get A Hug

I spent a good portion of today working on my little bog garden in the backyard.  Sometimes when there's a lot of upheaval in the house, I find myself wanting to work on projects in the garden even though there are a ton of other ways my time could probably be better spent right now.  I think there's something about making a home for growing things that eases my mind and helps me relax and recenter myself.  And it's so lovely to make a tour of the garden every day and see what plants are just starting to wake up from their long winter sleep.

So I hauled around dirt and rocks and didn't even bother with gloves because I wanted to get my hands right down in the soil.  I planted a little Nishiki willow, which will have glorious pink, green and white dappled leaves in the springtime, and put in some crocus bulbs even though it's hardly the season to be planting them.  Crocus are hardy little things, and the squirrels leave them alone here since they have a bird feeder to focus on instead.

Hopefully the willow will give the small birds a bit of cover through a good portion of the year.  I moved my bird feeder out into the center of my yard since the cats were eating so many of my birds, and all it seems to have accomplished is that instead of a cat feeder I now have a hawk and owl feeder.  I looked outside today to discover a Coopers hawk actually sitting on top of the bird feeder stand and plucking all the feathers off of an unfortunate little sparrow before gulping it down.  I went out there after he was finished and it looked like a down pillowcase had exploded in my yard.  Huzzah!

Admittedly the predatory birds are pretty cool to watch and definitely an improvement over the cats, as they don't kill things and then leave them on my back porch as presents.  I should probably just hum "The Circle of Life" under my breath and carry on.  But I think I'm going to plant a few more things that the little birds can hide in.  I'd like to at least give the poor little things a sporting chance.

Connor is still having seizures (he had four today), but otherwise he was in good spirits.  He's made up a sign for Ellen and it's really cute to watch how excited he gets when he comes home from school and sees her sitting on the couch.  It's pretty great how quickly they've bonded and to watch Connor interact with his sister.  She wants him to sit next to her all the time, and he wants to hold her hand and give her a million love butts.  It's pretty cute.

We hit a big milestone today; this evening Ellen gave me a spontaneous hug for the first time ever! I didn't make a big to-do of it because that might scare her off, but I really wanted to tear up, throw confetti and then do a happy dance around the house.  Then later she actually asked me to give her a hug, which is even more of a big deal.  It's the first time she's verbally asked me for any sort of physical contact.  Best.  Day. Ever.  I think I've got a lot more hugs and snuggling to look forward to in the future!

She's also asking us more questions about her adoption and what makes up a family, and as her English improves we're providing those basic definitions and grabbing as many teachable moments as we can.  She's doing her best to navigate this new, mystifying and sometimes terrifying world and she's doing it with more grace and aplomb than we ever could have imagined. 

In Which We Do More Stuff

Connor had four seizures today. Bleagh!  It didn't seem to slow him down any though; he was laughing in his sleep just a little while ago.  Here's hoping he has a better day tomorrow!

We had our first post-placement visit from the social worker today, which went well.  I can't believe we've been home a month already!  Ellen was a bit nervous and she didn't much like leaving school early, but she still behaved herself pretty well.  And of course I predictably lost track of time and so when the social worker got here I was in an apron and on roller skates doing chores and belting out showtunes while wheeling Connor around the house in his stander, so I'm sure I made a great impression too.  Of complete insanity.  Oh well.

Anyway, it's been an extremely busy few days here, so I'm off to bed.  Tomorrow we'll mostly be relaxing, which I think will be much appreciated! 

~Jess

In Which We Go Out In Style

Connor had five seizures today; this trend is not going in the right direction.  I'm waiting to hear back from the neurologist right now, and I'll be taking the little guy in to be weighed tomorrow morning.  It could be he's gained enough weight now that his medication needs adjusting.  It's frustrating to see him scared during these seizures and not be able to do anything besides comfort him; I'm really hoping we'll figure something out soon to get him back on track.

Despite all the seizures we still had a packed day, though.  Ellen went in late to school today because this morning she had her first ever dental appointment.  I'd uploaded a couple of books and games about the dentist to the iPad last week in preparation for the trip, and we spent some time talking about exactly what would happen, how the tools would sound, etc.  Since she knew what to expect she breezed through the appointment, though towards the end of it she was getting impatient because she wanted to get to school.

Thankfully her orphanage had a dental hygiene program and taught all the kids about brushing their teeth.  They also ate fairly well, though I believe she was a bit overly fond of soft drinks while she lived in Thailand.  She had no cavities, and though the enamel on her teeth is a bit thin overall things looked great-- especially when you consider she hadn't ever had a professional cleaning.  They removed all of the tarter and staining, and she walked out with teeth an entirely different color.  It's amazing how dramatic a change a good teeth cleaning can make!

So after her teeth cleaning we grabbed a quick meal and then I dropped her back off at school.  I had a precious few hours to myself, and then it was time for me to pick up Connor.  The kids shed their backpacks at home and ate a quick snack (Ellen) and meal (Connor), and then we took off for the hair salon.

Ellen was really, really excited about cutting her hair, and the closer we got to the appointment the more different she wanted the cut to be.  She's had the same chin-length bob since she was four years old, so changing her hair was a pretty big deal.  By the time we got to the salon she'd settled on an edgy asymmetrical pixie cut that fit her rock star personality.  I was a little worried that she would change her mind once the stylist actually got to work with the scissors, but thankfully she loved it.

So you know how I always say that Connor grows in hair cuts?  Turns out he's not the only kid in this household that does that.  Ellen's new haircut makes her dark eyes look huge and gives her a swan neck.  She looks about twenty-five and absolutely gorgeous.  I'm still debating on whether or not she's allowed to leave the house tomorrow looking like that; she was already a seriously attractive girl and the whiter teeth and new 'do have definitely upped the ante.  I'm so not ready to have boys knocking on our door.

After that we went to the library at Ellen's request for the third time in the past week, which I do not have a problem with at all.  And then we went to the store, and then we went home and collapsed on the couch in exhaustion.

It was quite the day! 

~Jess

In Which We Marvel At Abundance

Connor had another rough day, I'm afraid: four more seizures.  Seems like he's getting into a bit of a seizure cycle right now.  Hopefully we can break out of this and get him back on track; that's about four more seizures than I'd like him to be having per day!  At least these seem to have a really quick recovery time. 

Ellen had a doctor's appointment today so I had a shorter time than usual to get my errands done.  So I popped off to the grocery store shortly after I dropped off the kids.  I'm having to seriously change my grocery shopping habits.  Now I'm making a lunch for Ellen to bring to school, and the child is going through an amazing amount of food.  Whenever we come into the house, practically the first thing she does is check both the fridge and the pantry.  I think she's still delighted by the idea of having access to food at any time of the day. 

Ellen wasn't malnourished when she came to us and she ate three balanced meals a day at her orphanage, but she's definitely got some wiggle room when it comes to her weight.  She's not gorging herself or eating until she throws up (which some newly adopted children do) but she's chowing down on some seriously large portions right now.  I suspect she'll eventually slow down once it really sinks in that there will always be food readily available whenever she wants it, but for now I'll be grabbing a cart instead of a basket when I go to the grocery store and stocking up on easy-to-prepare snacks so she's able to feed herself whenever she's hungry in between meals. 

Sometimes when she comes home and sees that I've bought more food, she gives me a huge hug and exclaims in a delighted voice, "Oh thank you, Mom!"  It makes me smile and breaks my heart a little all at the same time.  When I was growing up, I took it for granted that there was plenty of food whenever I wanted it.  Now that I have a kid who is overcome with gratitude when she sees that I've restocked us up on peanut butter, I realize what a luxury that truly was. 

Connor's weight seems to be relatively stable right now, though he needs to go for another weigh-in soon.  I suspect he's in the middle of another growth spurt; certainly he seems heavier to me when I'm carrying him around!  Or maybe I'm just losing my muscles since I'm not playing roller derby right now, and he just seems heavier.  If he has gained a significant amount of weight that might be what's causing the seizures-- his medication levels might need to be adjusted up.

Guess we'll have to see!

~Jess

In Which We Do All The Things

 Connor had a bit of a rough day today; he had four seizures and spent a good portion of it sleeping on the couch.  So far as I can tell he's not sick; the medication change just doesn't seem to be working for him.  So I'll be calling the doctor this week to see what we need to do next.  Despite his seizures and the napping, he was otherwise in good spirits today.  He spent quite a bit of his free time grabbing his favorite stuffed animal (Gobo from Fraggle Rock), throwing him onto the floor and giggling.  It's pretty awesome to see him using his hands like that despite having that many seizures today; to me it shows that they aren't affecting him nearly as much as the apneic and cyanotic seizures did.

As Ellen acquires more English and is able to better express herself, I'm learning more about her life at the orphanage and what makes her tick.  I've set a goal for myself to try and find out one new thing about her a day, and so far that's been pretty easy to do.  I found out today that she had a friend at the orphanage who had seizures, so that's why Connor's seizures don't scare her.  And I also found out that she apparently never, ever wants kids because she helped take care of a lot of the smaller children at the orphanage and so dislikes little children as a general rule (though she makes an exception for Connor).  We'll see if that conviction holds when she's older.  Sounds like babysitting the neighborhood kids for a summer job once she's older is probably not going to be her first choice to earn extra spending money, though.


Anyway, we've got quite a few firsts coming up this week.  On Tuesday we'll be going in for Ellen's first-ever haircut in a salon.  Apparently one of the caretakers at the orphanage cut her hair in the past and she's never gotten to choose how she wanted it; she's had the same chin-length bob since she was about four years old. 

We'll see how this goes; she really wants to get her hair cut so her bangs aren't in her eyes, and yet when I ask her how she wants it cut she basically says that she wants it to be exactly the way it is right now-- including the bangs in her eyes.  She's not a huge fan of change.  But she doesn't want to have to braid her bangs to get them out of her eyes anymore, and she refuses to use any hair products whatsoever to get them out of the way, so something needs to change. 

I bought her a couple of hair magazines to look through.  She leafed through all 2700 or so hair styles and declared that she didn't see any she liked.  Eventually after a bit of digging I figured out that she was simply way overwhelmed by so many choices, which isn't really all that surprising.  So I opened one of the magazines up and told her to pick out her favorite hairstyle on each spread, which I then circled. 

Once we'd gone through the whole magazine I cut out all the circled hairstyles, ending up with about twenty-five.  Then I showed them to her in pairs and asked her to pick which one she liked better.  I discarded the one she didn't choose and then made up a new pair.  I kept going through them over and over until we'd narrowed it down to four hairstyles-- all of which are bobs that are slightly edgier than what she has now.  We'll take those to the hairdresser, who hopefully will be able to cut her hair in a way that won't be too big of a change but will make her happy. 

Ellen also wants to dye her hair brown, but I think one change at a time is probably going to be the way to go; plus dying her gorgeous jet-black hair any color at all is going to be a pretty major production.  So we'll ease into that.


I, on the other hand, have been informed that I'm never, ever ever allowed to get my hair cut.  Ever.  Apparently while Ellen is (sort of) okay with a change on her own hair, she absolutely is not okay with a change in mine.  I think at this point since so many other things in her life are constantly different, Mom is supposed to stay exactly the same and therefore, safe.  So despite my three inches worth of split ends, I won't be getting my hair cut any time soon.  I drew the line when she told me I wasn't allowed to dye it, though.  Sorry, kiddo-- that's not happening.

Anyway, so she's also going to be going to the dentist for the first time ever.  I think I'm dreading that appointment more than she is; I'm really hoping that things will go smoothly and she'll need a minimum of work on her teeth.  She has amazingly straight teeth already, so I doubt she'll need braces.  Going fifteen years without any tooth cleaning though makes me wonder whether or not those straight teeth are going to turn out to be full of holes, though.  She's definitely got some major plaque buildup, so I wouldn't be surprised. 

We'll just have to see; she at least has been brushing her teeth, though I haven't been able to convince her she needs to do it more than once a day.  And she's never flossed her teeth before either.  We're working on it.

And finally, we've got our first post-placement visit coming up as well.  We'll have a social worker visiting our house and asking about how things are going.  So it's going to be an extremely busy week!

~Jess

In Which We Are Cleaner But Under The Weather

It's been a busy week here as we continue to settle into our new family of four.  Ellen is doing remarkably well for having so many changes thrown at her at once.  She's picking up English extremely quickly, and sometimes I have to remind myself not to speak in sentences that are too complicated-- it's easy to forget that she doesn't understand everything. 

She won't usually tell us when she doesn't understand though, which makes for some frustrating moments on both sides.  Usually if she doesn't understand what I'm saying, she'll just answer "Yes" to it and hope that was the right answer.  I found out a few days ago that the poor girl hadn't understood my explanation of how to turn on the shower during our initial tour of the house, and so she had actually been taking baths and then washing her hair in the sink the last few weeks rather than ask me.  She'd never used a bathtub before coming here, and I thought she was just taking baths because she liked them and not because she didn't know how to turn on the shower.  Cue the Bad Mommy Guilt Trip Syndrome. 

But I'm happy to say she now understands how to use the shower, and as a result the personal hygiene standards have gone way up around here.  I was having a hard time figuring out why I was having to push her to wash her hair when she was taking two showers a day in Thailand.  Problem solved.  Hooray!

She comes from a culture and environment that doesn't encourage her to ask for help or admit she doesn't understand something (and also she's a teenager), so it's probably going to take her some time before we're able to bring home the fact that she's not only allowed to ask questions, but encouraged to do so.  It's something we'll keep working on.  In the meantime I'll keep asking her to repeat explanations back to me to make sure she understands.  It annoys the bejeezus out of her, but at least I know she's gotten what I'm saying. 

She had a friend come over to hang out for the first time this weekend, which was pretty exciting for her.  It was neat to see the girls getting along so well, and I got to see a few new things from Ellen in the process-- she demonstrated some of her magic tricks and taught her friend a dance she'd made up to a Thai music video.  Her friend taught her the "chicken dance" and the "hokey-pokey," so she's now prepared for pretty much any roller skating rink session ever.  She's a quick study.  Right now when she's with me she's really shy around groups of kids, but it's obvious that she's naturally outgoing and I suspect that once she has more English she'll dive right in to the social scene. 

We're definitely having our "teenage" moments, and also I am going to have to get used to spending a lot more time at the mall (we spent four and a half hours there this weekend "just looking") but for the most part things are going really well.

Connor, I'm sad to say, is not doing so well.  He had five seizures yesterday-- all the new kind-- and he's not sleeping well.  They're slowly getting more frequent and longer.  He keeps waking up to have a seizure at two or three in the morning and then having a hard time getting back to sleep.  I wasn't going to take him to school this morning since he had such a rough night (and had already had a seizure today), but he woke up around seven thirty and insisted that he wanted to go.  So I ended up taking him in, since he's not sick and evidently wasn't going to catch up on sleep even if I kept him home.  I've got a call in to the neurologist, and hopefully we'll hear back from him soon.  I'm wondering if these seizures are a different type, and if his medication needs to be changed as a result.  We'll see what the neurologist has to say.

At least he hasn't caught Ellen's cold yet.  She's had the sniffles for about a week, and one of his nurses was out with the flu earlier in the week.  The last thing he needs is to get sick on top of this whole seizures mess.

Hope he feels better soon!

~Jess

In Which We Celebrate A Birthday

Ellen had a great birthday yesterday!

She slept in late yesterday morning, something I was probably way more excited about than she was.  This kid is a serious morning person-- as in the kind of ridiculously upbeat, cheery person in the mornings that I used to be before I had kids and could never sleep in again.  But she and Connor both slept in late, so I got to get back in bed after giving Connor his medication and lounge around until nearly eight o' clock.  Bliss!

Anyway, so after everyone got up and moving, we sang the happy birthday song and opened presents.  The child was relatively blasé about our gifts, which included a hat, pair of jeans and shirts in her required color scheme (black, white and black).  The clothes that her aunt and grandmother sent proved to be a much bigger hit, as they were not only black and white but also had skulls on them.  Basically what I have is a teenager who wants to look like she's in a death metal band, but has not figured out yet that it's uncool to hold her Mom's hand in public.  I do not have a problem with this.

Then we left Connor with the nurse and took off for Thai lessons.  It turned out the place was nearly deserted because of the Seahawks game, so we left after about half an hour as there was only one student there and no teachers.  Oh well!  We drove from there to the mall; Ellen had received a gift card to JC Penny's from her great grandparents and she wanted to see what she could find with it.

I think Ellen still finds department stores a bit overwhelming; there are a lot more choices than she's probably used to having in terms of clothing and accessories.  I'm pretty sure the kid's not used to having choices period, so we've come a long way in the past few weeks.  She found a pair of flipflops to wear at her swimming class that were shockingly not in black (probably because they didn't have any black) and then we went to look at jackets.  She hasn't quite adjusted to the 35 or so degree temperature difference between here and Thailand yet, so she's wearing her coat pretty much at all times.  I think she wanted another option besides her competition jacket from Thailand and the black hoodie we bought her before we came home. 

And she found one, after carefully perusing the store a couple of times.  It's a, to quote the tag, "black faux fur bomber jacket."  Basically it looks like they took a knit jacket, skinned several stuffed animal pumas and affixed them to the front and back of it in a sort of furry hooded vest, um, thing.  And as she happily tried it on my brain was having a little argument with itself.  Half of it was going "She's making choices!  This is a good thing!  And she's expressing a personal style!" and the other half was saying "Wait-- she's going to wear that in public?"

I guess this is probably the same thing just about any mom of a teenager goes through.  But it wasn't suggestive, offensive, or inappropriate for a kid her age-- it was just something that I would never, under any circumstances, be caught dead wearing.  Any hey, it was her gift card, and as long as what she wants to buy fits under the not offensive, inappropriate or suggestive rule, it's her money and she can spend it how she wants.  So she bought the jacket, and she happily wore it to school today.  And I say good for her-- she's dressing how she wants to dress and figuring out who she wants to be, and that's a pretty fantastic thing.

Anyway, so then we went out and found her strawberry cake.  Normally I would make one, but she'd absolutely fallen in love with a very pretty cake at the Asian grocery store the other day and I was doubtful that I would be able to recreate it at home.  So we bought a cake this year.  Next year I hope she'll know enough people to have a party and there will be more people to share it with, but in the meantime, more cake for me.

We came home, lounged around for a while as Connor had his quiet time and she showed me several more Youtube videos of herself on national television in Thailand.  I'm still rather stunned by the sheer number of times Ellen has been on TV.  She's been in a soap opera, done a fashion show, and a bunch of interviews with various celebrities who were raising money for her orphanage.  Seriously if I hadn't seen the proof with my own eyes I'd be tempted to think she was making up stories, but this kid has, for example, met the entire Liverpool soccer team (and been given an autographed ball by them) and hung out with more Thai pop stars than I can count.

We had no idea about any of this when we started the process to adopt her, but it helps explain why she's such an interesting mix of mature and naive, and also why she's so open to new experiences.  This is a kid who walked a runway in the Thai equivalent of American Idol when she was seven years old, but who had never seen a microwave before she started exploring our kitchen.

At any rate, whatever the reason behind why she is who she is, she's a pretty awesome kid.    

We went to dinner at her favorite Thai restaurant, where they served her some homemade coconut ice cream for her birthday.  And then we went home, lit the candles on her cake, sang happy birthday again and all ate a piece of what actually turned out to be raspberry and not strawberry cake but was still delicious.  Really, it's hard to go wrong with cake.  She declared it to be a "Good good birthday, Mom!  Yaaaay!" in that bubbly, enthusiastic way she throws herself at life in general, so I think she had a pretty great day.

That's my girl!

~Jess

In Which We Are A Family On The Inside

Today is Ellen's fifteenth birthday!

I have no doubt that it's going to be quite a landmark year for the girl.  She'll have lots and lots of new experiences-- hopefully more good ones than bad.  Technically she could get her driving learner's permit now, but we're going to hold off on that for, um, a while.  She's still learning basic written English right now; we're not going to throw traffic laws in on top of that.

Anyway, the week has been relatively eventful.  A couple of days ago we drove over to the hospital to x-ray Ellen's legs, hips and torso.  She's got an appointment with the orthopedic clinic next week to see what things look like in there.  We were standing next to each other when the x-ray tech came out and called her name.  He looked right at me and then said to her, "Is there anyone here with you?"  Ha!

To my mind, it's so obvious that we're a family unit that I haven't really thought about how the rest of the world sees us.  I'm really used to being stared at because of the little guy, so I haven't really noticed a difference there.  Ellen seems pretty immune to the staring too-- I would imagine she got quite a bit of it in Thailand.  The only time people really up the ante is when they see us with Jer.  Here I think people pretty quickly figure out that Ellen is adopted, but in Thailand where adoption is very uncommon we definitely got some very confused looks and questions.  Oh well!  Luckily Ellen thinks it's pretty funny right now, though she may find it annoying later once the novelty wears off.

Connor has now decided that Ellen is his favorite person in the whole world besides Daddy.  It's pretty cute to see how excited he gets to give her a love butt (actually about ten love butts, as he never seems to think one is enough for his big sister) in the morning and evening.  I'm lucky if I get even one!  Mommy is always the boring one, right?  That's okay-- I can just steal kisses.

He's had a few more of those weird seizures in the past few days; we're waiting until Connor's med increase kicks in fully before we change anything else.  It takes about two weeks for the level adjustment to happen.  So in the meantime we're just keeping a close eye on him.

Otherwise things are going well!

~Jess

In Which We're Here

Sorry for the sporadic updates; I know you all are anxious to hear how we are doing.

And we're doing well!  I'm just tired.  Very, very tired.  Even though our new daughter is fourteen (almost fifteen), in many ways it's like having a newborn in the house.  I say that not because she's crying all the time and getting me up every four hours, because she absolutely isn't.  That's one of the major advantages of adopting a teenager instead of an infant.

It's more that our whole lives are in the process of rearranging to welcome this new person into our family, and so while I'm not doing anything exhausting on a physical level, mentally I'm doing some pretty spectacular gymnastics right now.  When I have a bit of idle time, instead of blogging I end up doing something like falling asleep in a chair in the library with an open book on my lap.  I'm not being terribly productive in the writing department at the moment.

But eventually our lives will settle down a bit, and I'll be able to actually form coherent sentences at the end of the day.  So rest assured that while I may not be blogging every single day right now, I'll get back to it eventually.  I will not abandon you, dear readers. 

Anyway, Connor had several seizure free days, and then he started up again last night.  He was extremely tired yesterday, which makes me wonder if he's getting sick.  I'm not really ready to tackle the whole "one child sick and one child well" thing logistically yet, so I'm hoping that's not the case. 

He's been working with a walker at physical therapy, and we're starting to see him have a lot more awareness of his feet and leg muscles, which is pretty cool.  He's not taking steps or lifting his feet off the ground in the walker yet, but he is shifting his weight around and swiveling his feet back and forth, which is pretty cool.  In his wheelchair, he's started amusing himself by kicking the footrest, as it makes a lovely clattering noise when he's got his ankle-foot orthotics on. On the one hand, this is great as it means he's learning how those muscles work.  On the other hand, it gets really annoying after he's done it for twenty straight minutes in the car.  Oh well!

Ellen is loving school-- she especially likes her English Language Learning teacher, which is a very good thing.  After testing her English reading and writing skills and determining that they're pretty basic, they've decided to remove her from choir and put her in some one-on-one tutoring with the ELL teacher for the whole period.  I think that will really help her with her language skills.

She's got a photographic memory for streets, which is pretty cool-- after walking a new route with her teacher once she could tell me how to drive the route backwards while in a car.  I guess that would come in handy during the days when she was taking a motorcycle taxi to her swimming class in Thailand.  She's also been adventurous about trying new foods, which is nice.  We've added peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, goldfish crackers, green bean casserole and spicy chicken sandwiches to the list of things she'll eat in the last few days.

So overall we're doing well.  It's just a matter of readjusting and settling in!

~Jess