In Which The Little Guy Is Under The Weather And Eden Holds Her Own

Last night Connor stayed up until two thirty in the morning, so it's not surprising that he was a bit groggy when I dropped him off for school.  Apparently he perked up quite a bit once he got there though, and he was fairly cheery until Eden's physical therapy appointment this evening, where he started throwing up and then conked out on one of the mats for the whole hour.  I think he might be coming down with yet another bug; it is rather the season for them.  I had to wake him up when it was time to go home, and once I put him to bed he was out like a light.  Poor little guy.  He's not running a fever though and he didn't have any seizures, so we'll see how he feels in the morning.

So I was sitting there at while Connor snoozed away watching Eden balance on a wobble board while she threw a basketball back and forth with her physical therapist, and I was awestruck by just how far she's come in the past eleven months.  When she got here, walking more than a few hundred yards was exhausting, stairs were a serious challenge, and something like balancing on a wobble board seemed completely out of reach.  She's not only running and jumping and balancing on that board like a pro; she's also standing so much taller, with her shoulders back and her head held high.  It's absolutely amazing how much of a difference it makes; I love seeing the evidence of the confident, self-assured young woman she's becoming in the way she carries herself.  That's my girl!

In other news, tomorrow I have my intake appointment for the home health care company who will be doing our respite care!  I am so unbelievably excited about this-- I did a happy dance around the house for about five minutes after I got the phone call.  Working with two different companies for respite care and night nursing may be a bit complicated, but I am really, really ready to have my respite care back so I'll make it work.

Anyway, it's late and I need to be up a bit early to get some extra cleaning done.  Tomorrow's another busy day!

~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 It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas Already, Which Is Kind of Nuts

Today Connor and I had a bit of a slow start; after I gave him his morning meds I went back to bed and we both slept in a while.  It felt really strange not needing to get up and get the day started!  I finally dragged myself out of bed and woke Connor up, and we puttered around the house a bit before heading over to my parents' house for lunch.  I love having them so close by now; it's great to be able to spend so much time with them!

Then my mom and I went out and did a bit of what turned into early Christmas shopping, which wasn't our original intent.  Christmas definitely sneaked up on me this year; it doesn't seem like we should be anywhere close to December yet!  I'm totally not ready and I hadn't even started thinking about presents or decorations, but from the way the stores were decked out you'd think the holiday was next week.  What the heck happened to Thanksgiving in the retail world, anyway?  I'm pretty sure that stuff was all on the shelves before Halloween.  The mall had the 50 foot tall Christmas trees up already, which Connor was excited by, though he didn't demand we get them as presents for all our relatives this year.  I guess the kid is growing up and he's too cool to demand giant Christmas trees as presents.  I kind of miss it-- can't believe how big he's getting.  Can you believe he'll be eight next year?  That's crazy talk, people.


Eden spent the whole day out at her retreat and didn't get back until around nine in the evening.  She told me "I had a good time, but I really really happy to see my bed!"  She was in her pajamas fifteen minutes after she got home, and in bed five minutes after that-- I've never seen the kid get ready for sleeping so quickly or enthusiastically.  Evidently the retreat was fun but also exhausting.  She said she'd definitely like to go back sometime, which was great to hear.  I think they do a summer camp as well, so that might be a really good option for her next year.

I'm so glad she enjoyed herself, and I'm really proud of her for handling being away from home so well.  Trusting that we'll still be here when she returns is a huge step for her, and I think a hallmark of growing maturity and understanding that our family is not a temporary stop for her, but a permanent home.  Hooray for our girl!

~Jess

In Which All's Quiet On The Home Front

Eden is off at her church retreat today!  Since we don't have night nursing on the weekends, the house seems really quiet right now with just me and Connor home.  Connor went to sleep on time (hooray!), so I puttered around a bit and then took a long bath and soaked for a while.  That's the one advantage of not having the teenager home-- no competition for the bathroom with a tub in it.  But otherwise I'm kind of missing my girl, and I hope she's having better weather up at the campsite than we're having down here.  It's kind of stormy and rainy at the moment.  I want her to have a good time, and I can't imagine camping in forty degree windy, stormy weather would qualify.

I got some good news today; I checked my e-mail this evening and got a message from our regional care coordinator that our respite care might finally be happening again soon!  I haven't had respite care during the day since May, so I am more than ready for it to start up again.  My parents have been fantastic about watching the kids, but it will be really nice to have some additional support.

Otherwise, not much happened today.  Sometimes quiet days are pretty nice!

~Jess

In Which Cricket Attempts To Shrink And Connor's Chair Gets A Tune Up

Seriously, cat.  This is not going to work.

Today Connor went to school sans wheelchair-- I had to take it in for repairs.  Recently it developed this annoying habit where the brakes spontaneously deploy every ten to fifteen feet with this huge clang.  This, as you might imagine, has been driving me absolutely up the wall, not to mention that it's been seriously impeding getting places in any kind of a hurry.

It's complicated by the fact that while the brakes slowed the chair down, the wheel treads have worn down enough that they didn't actually stop the chair if it's on any kind of an incline at all.  Since large portions of the streets in the Pacific Northwest run down steep hills that end in things like major traffic intersections or you know, the ocean, this had the potential to be really exciting.  So I made an appointment and took it in.

So I spent an hour and a half or so tootling around in Gig Harbor while the repairs were done, and I'm now happy to say that Connor has a chair that goes when it's supposed to go and stops when it's supposed to stop-- sans the giant clanging noise.  Hooray!  It's amazing what a difference a simple tune-up of equipment can make; I didn't realize just how annoying the problem was until I wasn't dealing with it anymore.  Connor seems to enjoy the smoother, quieter ride too.

Eden leaves for her first ever church retreat tomorrow, which is pretty exciting.  It will be the first time she's slept away from home without me there, so she's a bit nervous about it.  I think she'll have a pretty great time once she gets out there though; she'll know quite a few people and it's only for one night.  I think it's a good way to ease into getting used to some independence, and I think it might make her more open to the idea of a summer camp some time in the future.  I have some really fond memories of the camps I attended as a kid, and I'd love for her to have some similar experiences.

It's been getting colder here, and the cats have started spending as much time as they can on laps or burrowed under warm laundry as I'm folding it.  I have seasonal lap cats-- they condescend to sit on me only in the winter time, probably because they think I make a good heating pad.  Then they get really huffy every time I want to move because my legs have fallen asleep or something.

We had a pint sized wool-lined bed we'd bought for Eden's guinea pigs a while back that they didn't care for, so I washed it in anticipation of putting it away.  It was sitting out on the couch for all of five minutes before it became Cricket's new favorite happy place-- despite the fact that it's about three times too small for her to fit inside.  I ended up buying her a more appropriately sized snuggly cat bed so she wouldn't look so pathetic and could fit her entire body inside the thing, but I had to stick the guinea pig bed inside it because otherwise she completely ignored it.  Every once in a while I take it out and wash it and she waits by the dryer until it's done and she can attempt to stuff her entire body into the thing again.  I think she's convinced that if she tries hard enough, someday she'll fit.

Crazy cat.

~Jess

In Which I Spend Way Too Much Time Decorating

Connor had a seizure (he's still getting over that cold) before school today and so I let him take a short nap on my bed while I got ready for the day.  We'd been back there for about ten minutes when I became aware of a smell filtering through the bedroom door.  This was not a pleasant smell.  It was more of a Something Is Very, Very Burned And Or Possibly In Flames Right Now kind of odor.

So this morning Eden discovered that if you put those vegetarian buffalo wings in the microwave and they are not hot after two minutes, which is the heating time on the package, it is not a good idea to put them in on high for six more minutes unless you prefer your fake chicken wings hot enough that they are actively on fire when you take them out.  Thankfully there was no harm done except for the fact that the veggie wings had to be put out in the sink and were inedible lumps of charcoal and my entire kitchen is now heavily perfumed in Eau De Charred Soy.  Yum.  Any suggestions on how to get the smell out of the microwave?

After I got the kids off to school (and then returned to Eden's school with a new outfit as her old shirt apparently smelled rather strongly of burnt veggie wings) my dad came by and we got to work hanging the wall sconces I bought for the master bedroom a few weeks ago.  Apparently what happens when I don't write for five months is I spend all that time and energy redecorating instead.  I've been slowly but steadily redoing our bedroom to make it more functional and welcoming, and I've pretty much got it the way I want it now.  Since Jer hasn't been home I've been making all of the decorating decisions, so the room is quite a bit more feminine than it probably would have been otherwise, but I think he'll probably be able to live with it.

Wall Sconces of Glory

So now I have a shag rug in there, and a super comfy zebra print chair, and a whole station with an electric kettle for tea and hot cocoa and a nice little plate with various kinds of chocolate on it, and lots of books, and plants (my bedroom is a cat free zone, which is why my plants are not all little chewed nubs) and my computer, too.  I'm currently wrapped up in my super fuzzy throw, sipping hot cocoa and stuffing my face full of Andes Mints while I'm typing, and since there's a bathroom back here as well I'm seriously wondering why I even need the rest of the house.  I guess I would eventually die of scurvy or something if I never came out of my room again, but it would take a while.  I've got a lot of chocolate back here.

Squids Make All Spices Taste Better

So anyway, Dad and I put up the wall sconces, and then I stood around for a little bit being proud of them and trying to figure out how to work every conversation I have for the next week around to wall sconces so I can talk about them, and then I got a phone call from Connor's school because his g-tube had accidentally been yanked out during a transfer and they needed me to come put a new one in so I had to stop daydreaming.  Hey, it happens.

After that we went to PT, where Connor tried out a new walker, and then we came home to find a package on the doorstep with my new food-safe tins I ordered to put all my spices in (told you I had the redecorating bug).  I spent Connor's entire nap time hanging my spice rack (two Gamble bottle crates hung vertically on the outside of my pantry wall) and transferring over all my spices to their new containers.  Then I hung a gilded squid over the whole mess, because squids are awesome.  See?

So now I can find all my spices, which will be really, really nice; this arrangement is a vast improvement over their previous corner cabinet home.  The rest of my house may look terrible (with the exception of the bedroom wall sconces, which look awesome) and there's a rather odd lingering smell of burnt buffalo spices throughout the whole place, but at least I'll be able to find my za'atar when I need it!

~Jess

In Which I Sort Of Explain

Hello, friends.  It's been a long, long time.

So it's been nearly a year since I started this whole Parenting-A-Teenager journey, and let me just say that adopting an older child is every bit as much an extreme sport as roller derby.  The last few months have been. . . intense.  We've had a lot going on around here, and shortly after I wrote my last post things exploded and it became evident that it would be best if I took a hiatus from the Internet entirely until it settled down around here a bit.  So I just sort of walked away from it, and I stopped checking my e-mail and Facebook and everything because everybody wanted to know why I wasn't blogging and I couldn't figure out how to answer that question without sharing way more information than would be appropriate or healthy for our girl.  Sorry about that, everyone.

After a few months of intensive counseling multiple times a week we've made some significant progress, and I'm feeling comfortable with the idea of starting to write about my family again. I want to make it clear that we have zero regrets about the choice we made to pursue Eden's adoption and we're still fully committed to her (and should hopefully be finalizing next month!).  We'll be continuing to help her grow and heal over the next few years as she forges on towards adulthood.  I won't be going into any more detail about the last few months to protect her privacy, but I'll just say that it's been an extremely difficult period for all parties involved and leave it at that.

So a quick update on the rest of the family:

Connor's doing wonderfully and is as adorable as ever.  The kid's been working in a walker and that was going well for a while, but he now seems to have lost interest in it so we're taking a break.  He's getting over a cold at the moment, and is currently snoring and snortling away like a little pug dog in his room.  He's on the mend and felt much better today though, so he spent a large portion of his time amusing himself by asking to snuggle with me and then blowing his nose on my shirt.  Ah, the joys of motherhood.

Jer's doing well at Physician's Assistant school and is nearly done with his classroom time.  He's been gone seventeen months now and I am so, so ready for him to be home.  Unfortunately he'll be stationed in California for his year of clinicals so I'll be continuing my sort-of single parenthood for a while yet, but we hope he'll be doing at least a few of his rotations up this way, so we should see a lot more of him.  I've been checking train schedules for the line that runs down the California cost, and we're making plans to have some fun adventures together.

So anyway, here I am again-- thanks for being patient with me.  We'll be returning to our regularly scheduled programming of daily blogging now.  Huzzah!

~Jess