Update (!), with a Slice of OCD on the Side

Exactly three months after our last update, on July 29, 2015, look what came in email:  "You have an update!"

According to the answers to questions that we asked, Luna has a best friend in the orphanage and that best friend has just been matched by my agency with a family in the US. So, wrap your head around this: IF the family gets in touch with me, then Luna should be able to see and visit with her best friend from her Chinese orphanage, in the US.  Two little girls from the same orphanage in China who will get to continue their friendship once they arrive in the states with their forever families.  It really is too much to ask for. Here's hoping that the little girl's family is open to contacting us. I can, at the very least, assure Luna that her friend has been adopted and is home with her mommy and daddy. This is so much better than leaving a dear friend behind, in a tough situation, never to know how her life turned out.  (We heard from them, they live within driving distance of our house! I mean really, it boggles the mind, you can't make this stuff up.)

There were not any pictures included in the update but there were two videos and we managed to take screen shots of them so that you can see.  Where as before I had one minute and nine seconds of video of Luna, I now have about seven minutes total. <happy dance>

 

In the first video, Luna is sitting on the floor discussing "snowflake pieces" with an orphanage worker and  mainly it seems that they are discussing the colors of them.  It is obviously one that was taken just recently, her hair has been cut, and she's wearing shorts. At one point they put down the tiles and Luna is attempting to answer questions, including discussion about a "wa-wa" which is Mandarin for "baby doll." I really need to get my Chinese teacher to watch this so that I can get a better handle on what they are saying.  (According to my teacher, Luna is asked what toys she likes to play with and she answers, "cars and Barbie dolls."  She's gonna love it at our house.)

Honestly, this video kinda makes me sad. It's hard for me to watch. Just like in the video from our previous update where she talks to the kindergarten teacher, she really seems uncomfortable. It's as though  she does not like to be questioned, as if she dislikes being the center of attention, as if the intensity of the whole encounter is too much for her. The person taking the video also, just like in the other video, is taking it near a window - in the video you can see where the light is bouncing off her nose and the opposite side of her face.  I assume that they did this for quality of video but Luna should probably have been sitting with her back to the window.  She's focusing so hard on the tiles that her eyes dance back and forth because of her nystagmus.  That, added to the light from the window and I wonder if she can even see the tiles. In fact, other than the color "white," she didn't seem very confident at all in answering the lady's questions.  During the whole encounter she seems very nervous and shut down, to me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (My sweet husband: “Her haircut hurts my feelings.”

“Mine, too.”
“I mean it wouldn’t if the other kids had one to match but they don’t. Why don’t they?”
“I don’t know, Babe.”

Hair should be the least of our worries but we can’t seem to help it, we are OCDing about every little detail and we’re swiftly approaching OCD melt down.)


The next video is the kind that makes a momma and daddy's heart happy.  We've watched this video dozens of times and we just sit and giggle at her laughing. Because, she does, she laughs. She laughs. 

She laughs.

This video more than makes up for all of the angst of the other videos. The second video, videoed early this past winter (the kids are bundled up and her hair is shorter than it was in her referral photo which was taken in January) is nearly four minutes long.   Here, is where she finds her confidence, where she is comfortable, and where she shines. You can hear her little voice as she sings along.  She is having fun, she smiles, and then, laughs out loud!

Y'all, my baby’s got some moves. The video is four whole minutes of her dancing to a rockin' little tune and she’s good at it. The video captures make it look like very ad hock. It wasn't. She's precise in her movements, she has good timing, she KNOWS this routine and she is working it. The rest of the kids are just sort of blooping around but not Luna, she is doing something that she is good at and she knows it. She is free. 

(Apparently, it's known as "The Apple Song" and, originally from a movie, it's a popular love song in China.  The hand motions that she does in front of her face go along with the words, "Come here..." and then she makes the round shape of  "...my little apple," with her arms.  My Chinese teacher showed me a video where she'd come up with a dance to the same song for a recent local Vacation Bible School.)
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 <happy happy sigh>

 So, here's to another few months of waiting on a new update.

(We just found out that we probably won't be getting another update before Luna comes home - China has changed its timelines for updates from "every three months" to "every nine months."
I'm very thankful for the dancing video and I suspect we'll have it memorized before she gets here.)

 

 

 Q-Boo dancing with Luna.

 

 

7-29-15

7-29-15

 

 

 

 
 
 

7-23-15
"Kenny's  Moon"
-Aston Martin-

 

 

Sooner Than Soon

Well, there ya go. You're caught up. Which is a really good thing because I'm out of time.  School starts for us in exactly two weeks and, since we've started this grand adventure in  homeschooling, this means that I have far less time than I've had this summer.  I've spent the summer getting y'all caught up and doing what fundraising I can do. Now, it's time to switch gears and focus on the kids that we already have at home. Sooner than soon Luna will be in our arms. <crosses fingers and toes and every body part that bends>

For now, this is where I leave you because this is where we are:

 

 

 

 

 

It’s really beginning to feel like this, like these photos - there’s always someone missing. It’s a miserable feeling. You just can’t quite settle because you’re always looking around, counting heads, wondering what feels not quite right and then you remember, Oh, right.

 

I never know what to tell people when they ask me how many kids we have, the right answer is, "we have three at home." But you know, my brain doesn't work that fast, I'm always fumbling around with some version of, "Well, um, we have three older kids, three at home, and one in China," which leaves people blinking at me in scary silence, wondering to themselves, What do I say to that?  

 

I've become the crazy adoption lady. This is another phase of adoption -Crazy Adoptive Parent- and I've reached it.

 

You'll be the first to know when significant things happen in the process. 'Til then!

 

 

 

 

7-21-15
"Jennie's Moon"
Alabama

 

Here, Kitschy Kitschy! Here, Kitschy Kitschy!

Kitsch (/ˈkɪtʃ/; loanword from German) is a low-brow style of mass-produced art or design using popular or cultural icons. Kitsch generally includes unsubstantial or gaudy works or decoration, or works that are calculated to have popular appeal.

I love pink flamingos. Love them.  I know all about their supposed tackiness but there's just something so cutely, 1950s homey, about them.  Now, the LAST place on earth that I can think of that I'd want to live would be 1950's Alabama so please, do not misunderstand me.  Donna Reed would pop a high heel if she caught a glimpse of 2015 me, napping on my green chair, while my husband fixes dinner.  (In fact, the real Donna Reed wasn't very "Donna Reed," she had three husbands -I'm on my second, I'm not judging her I'm just sayin' that fiction is fiction for a reason.) 

ANYWAY, back to my flamingos. I've always loved them. Yes, I love the tacky and the brashness, and the fact that somehow, in spite of all of that, they managed to lodge themselves into our collective conscience as something "cute" and yes, homey, but more importantly, OVER THE TOP. There is something about them that speaks just a little bit of sneaky rebellion.  Try to force me into a predetermined mold all you like, I shall give you PINK FLAMINGOS!

This stands outside my house:

Judge me all you want, it's staying. 

Which is why, when I found green fabric with pink Flamingos on it, that sorta reminded me of golf pants, I just had to have it for Luna's quilt.  (Really, think Bing Crosby, you go straight to green golf pants with pink flamingos, don't cha? Yep. I bet Bob Hope would have a pair to match.)

(For the youngsters out there, here ya go....The Donna Reed Show  and Bing Crosby and please, don't need this one,  Bob Hope )

When I was waiting on Q-Boo I'd made her a small baby quilt ( (out of owl fabric- I do have a thing for flying things)  and a stuffed owl to match.  I'd heard of the Chinese proverb, "A red thread connects those destined to meet. It may stretch or tangle but it never breaks," (it actually comes from a Chinese myth but has been shortened down to that saying over the years) and so I'd put Q-Boo's quilt together with red thread because of it. I'd thought that I was so smart and original but then, after I was done, I'd found out that it IS a custom in China to give a pregnant woman squares of cloth that she then makes into a quilt for the baby and she uses, you guessed it, red thread.  I'm thinking I'm okay with not being original on this one, these kinds of  "coincidences" make me smile.

This is Luna's quilt. This quilt is a MESS!  It has crooked seams and pieces that don't match up and a border that I cut too short and had to "cheat" on…but I love it. I really do. It doesn’t help that I love the way that colored thread looks against colored fabric so, when I should use thread that matches the fabric to hide all the crooked seams, I often use, instead, a complementary color that screams to the world “CROOKED SEAM!”  This one has pink thread against that green. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whenever anything turns out this badly but I still love it for its randomness. I giggle to myself, Well, it was sewn by “Drunk Aunt Margaret," because it usually looks like something that someone's eccentric aunt Margaret would sew, in a drunken stupor, in the middle of the night, in the backroom of the house. I have this nice little dreamworld where I sell D.A.M. Quilts on Etsy with the tag line, "Designed by Fairies, Sewn by Drunk Aunt Margaret," and everyone loves them because they give me extra special credit that I am a genius and have designed these quilts just so, when in reality I just can’t sew worth a damn.  I've been giggling to myself and selling very crooked, very charming, "not right," stuffed animals for a while now, so I must not be the only one who loves this stuff. Turns out Drunk Aunt Margaret may have been Artsy Aunt Margaret. ;p

My high school Home Ec. teacher was a wonderful woman but she’d hurl a thousand times if she could see the things that I sew -the things that I sew and that I love.  That kid in kindergarten whom the teacher took the scissors from and just did the cutting for her because she was never going to be able to do it the "correct" way? That was me. I always hated that because whatever the end result, no matter how "correct," it did not come from me. My mother could tell me all she wanted to how great it was and I would want to say, "I didn't do that project, the teacher did."  I've learned in my life that I've had to redefine "correct," and to learn to lean toward my strengths. I can do whatever I want to do, I can NOT expect it to be classically perfect. It won't be.  Anyway. I love this quilt. I love that just like I put Q-Boo’s together with red thread because of that Chinese red thread proverb, I also put the main body of Luna’s quilt together with red thread.

I love the colors and the randomness and the little inside things that nobody else gets. I love the way that, down the front of the middle block it says, in a reference to the moon-filled heavens, “This way to the stars.”  I love that little red bicycle that is a nod back to my first mental glimpses of Luna riding her bike in our driveway. I love the little word “grow” and the bigger words, “home sweet home” and “happiness” and “love lane.”  For a little girl, who's never had a home, this is the perfect fabric. I almost started crying in the store.

I love that it is so many textures (probably one of the reasons that it turned out so badly is that that green is REALLY stretchy but some of the fabric is not.) I love that I put in elements that she can feel with her fingertips even if she can’t see them very well.

Yes, I especially love, love, love the pink flamingos. To me, they say, "Luna, you are home."





  

 

I even made these ragged pillows to go with Luna's quilt and to further celebrate all things "not quite right."  The whole thing is a lot like that pink flamingo that sits outside of my house. There are a lot of reasons to find to not like it, but with the right amount of "love and understanding," it becomes something sacred and very special. Kinda like every one  of us.

Many times, over the last few weeks, I've sat working on Luna's quilt, listening to a song by the Dixie Chicks called, "Lullaby."  I'd smile to myself, and swallow the lump in my throat, as my mind flashed back to the first time that I'd heard the song. 

On June 24, 2013, Q-Boo had been home for almost a year. I'm not going to lie, it was a tough year. That day I was sitting in my car listening to my newest Dixie Chicks CD,  I'd had the CD for a while but had never listened to the whole thing. So, I was surprised when this lovely little song came out of my speakers.  You can listen to it and watch the video, here:  Dixie Chicks, "Lullaby."

Lullaby
Dixie Chicks

They didn't have you where I come from
Never knew the best was yet to come
Life began when I saw your face
And I hear your laugh like a serenade

How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough, is forever enough
How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

I slip in bed when you're asleep
To hold you close and feel your breath on me
Tomorrow there'll be so much to do
So tonight I'll drift in a dream with you

How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough, is forever enough

How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

As you wander through this troubled world
In search of all things beautiful
You can close your eyes when you're miles away
And hear my voice like a serenade

How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough, is forever enough

How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

How long do you want to be loved
Is forever enough, is forever enough

How long do you want to be loved

Is forever enough
Cause I'm never, never giving you up
Is forever enough
Cause I'm never, never giving you up

That June day, as the song faded away, I was sitting in my car, gulping down tears, and I turned around to see this in my back seat:

 

I long to see Luna, in this one, right next to her:

This  past June, I took this picture of Q-Boo and every time that I look at it, I hear her in my head proclaiming,  "I have a SISTER!" not because we were even talking about it at this moment but because this is the kind of joy that she has about the whole subject. I have seen looks similar to this on her face when we have talked about Luna.  <happy sigh>

 

How long do you want to be loved?
Is forever enough?
Cause I'm never, never giving you up.

You've got a lot of people who are gonna love you, Luna. Forever.

238,900 Miles

The moon is 238,900 miles from the earth.

It is, roughly, 7,700 miles from my front door in the USA to Luna's orphanage in China.  At this point, there doesn't seem to be much difference.

This was my cover photo on Facebook in May for Mother's Day.  'Cause, yeah... it’s gotten to that
hard place.  This has to happen, I have to become “attached” or I won’t be ready for the difficult, sometimes grueling, work of bonding that comes after this.  BUT, good grief, this is where it starts getting harder and keeps getting harder for the next many months. Poor K, he knows the drill by now. I sigh, he asks “Why do you keep sighing?”  I claw at the air and make guttural noises, “…because…China!….”  He’s done this before, too, and he knows there isn’t anything that he can say.  I have a CHILD out there and I can not reach her, can’t know or control what happens to her, can not ensure that she won’t go to bed tonight hurt or sad or scared or lonely.  This is tough.  I’m here, Luna, thousands of miles away, but I am here and I’m getting closer to you.  I promise.

In fact, besides the awful waiting, <sigh>  there is something else that is an excruciating part of the adoption.  I call it, "The Silent Computer."  I've done what I can do and I'm down to waiting on news - weeks pass, and I’m trying to convince myself,  Of course, we haven’t been forgotten. Everything is still in play. We’re just waiting on people to get their end of paperwork done, it’s not personal. She’s fine, we’re fine, the process is fine. I've worn out "backspace" and "enter" buttons rechecking email just to be sure that nothing came in while I was absent for that thirty seconds from my computer.   Weekends are the worst - two whole days where there’s not even any point in checking email but I still check it. <sigh> <sigh> I am a needy adoptive parent.

 

I told Q-Boo that I remembered what it was like when I was waiting on her, "My tummy hurt because I wanted to hug and kiss you so much but I couldn't. I feel that way about her, now."

"Me, too!" Q-Boo wailed.

So, since I can't do anything, I plan stuff.  She needs some toys.

This is Lovegood, the gift that I bought way back in December and didn't put under the tree because I was too afraid to hope.  Lovegood will go with us to China.

Truthfully, this is how most of my conversations have gone:
"Can I get that doll with light blonde hair and blue eyes AND with Asian features?"
 <silence on the other end>

So, I've had to get creative.

I found a store on Etsy where I could have Bratz dolls repainted,  Freckle Farm Dolls.  After I explained what I was doing, the owner suggested that  Moxie dolls actually make for a more accurate Asian face so I ended up buying two for each girl on EBay and having her repaint them ( and in general, restore their innocence.)

Here are the girls hanging out in the middle of the "during" phase, after she'd removed their faces and then boiled and conditioned their hair:

And, here they are in their "before" and "after" shots.  She was right, the Moxie dolls ended up being exactly what we needed.

Bratz after

 

Bratz before



Moxie before

Moxie after

  

Moxie after

Moxie before



Moxie before

Moxie after

(Honestly, I feel like I should get some sort of award for saving these dolls from their hideous "before" lives. Like, you know, I gave them back their childhoods. <shrugs> Maybe, it's just me.
Actually, Q-Boo took one look at the Bratz "before" picture and asked disgustedly, "Why are her lips so big?" hahahahaha Even a four year old gets it. Ugh.)

Q-Boo has an Asian porcelain doll that sits on her chest of drawers.  What to do for Luna?  I found another store on Etsy called  Little Doll Hospital.  The owner finds and rehabs old porcelain dolls so she was able to pretty much custom rehab me one for Luna.



 

When it arrived, I didn't tell Q-Boo what it was, I just unwrapped it and showed it her. She proclaimed, “Oh! It looks JUST like my sister!”  So, I guess we did pretty good. It now sits on the chest of drawers next to Q-Boo's doll.

I have an order in with A Doll Like Me for two dolls, one for Q-Boo and one for Luna, which will be made according to photos of the girls. They should be done by Christmas.  And then, I'm done.  Unless the girls go nuts over their special stuff, I've done enough to find stuff that looks "just like them," and, from now on, we'll just go with the flow of whatever they prefer.

When I was growing up, my dad had a collection of National Geographics on the bookshelf in his office. I loved those things. Aside from the obvious, wonderful, sunny color of the spines, were the amazing pictures and the stories of far away places.  One thing that I miss in our computerized world is receiving big, glossy, magazines every month in the mail.  On my bookshelf, right now, is a National Geographic issue, birth month and year, for every member of my immediate family.  There are eight of them that range from June 1966 all the way to July 2010 - mine has a story, "I Live with the Eskimos," and a picture of an Eskimo on the front cover.  I decided that it was time to buy Luna's.  Normally, I've been able to contact the National Geographic website and just order a back issue. They were out of Luna's.  What now?  I managed to find two on EBay and I was a bit relieved when it finally came in the mail.  Here is what it looks like:

 

 

 

I've even started Chinese classes. Luna will be six when she gets here and they tell me that she'll probably have lost her Mandarin and totally picked up English in about six months but still, I'm using her coming as an excuse for us all to learn Chinese.  I want her to keep as much of it as she can but it would also be so good for us to learn it.  That's my theory, anyway.  I've found a homeschool class connected with our local Chinese school, Yuwenbon, where the kids can take Chinese classes on Fridays, and then K-Man and I can take them on Saturday mornings. I'm already taking on Saturday mornings and then catching K-Man up in the afternoons - between Saturday mornings, there are YouTube videos that we struggle through.  (I live in a city that is full of engineers- per capita, the people here are very well educated, and in fact, it has one of the largest research parks in the nation- but I am still sorta trying to get used to the idea that we have a Chinese school in Alabama.) Kids' brains may be amazingly keyed to acquire language but mine is not. That rusty ship has sailed and it sorta leaks around the barnacles. There have been many days, after my teacher has announced the newest sound, that I've laughed out loud. I'm from the southern US, I murder my own language, what am I gonna do to Mandarin?

 

Mandarin is unlike any other language that I've encountered. When I studied Spanish in college, the alphabet was pretty much the same, with tiny deviations.  We basically had to learn new rules for letters that we already recognized, we conjugated verbs until I thought I'd go nuts, and then we had to learn vocabulary.  Rolling r's was about the hardest thing that I had to conquer- burro!  Mandarin is like nothing I've ever seen or heard. I've made a new friend in the class who also happens to be African-American (Botswana,) she knows four African languages and some other languages as well including, obviously, English.  She agrees.  Wow. You just gotta take a minute and wrap your head around it.

Mandarin has twenty-one consonants and sixteen vowels (for reference, there are twenty-one consonants in English and five vowels, depending on that pesky y) and some of the sounds we don't even know how to make in English. It is a very subtle and precise language, where tongue and mouth position matter a great deal. I've had to spend some time just learning to hear it before I can even attempt to say it.  For example, there are three different aspirated (you force air out when you say them) consonants. They sound like, " Zzz,"  "Tss," and "Szz."  There are two different consonants where the sound is the same but, in one, the teeth are together and the sound comes from way back in your throat and, in the other, the mouth is open and the sound originates from much closer to your lips.

In Mandarin there are five tones - I often joke that I am singing when I'm in Mandarin class but that I've never been able to carry a tune so this can't end well. (There are NINE tones in Cantonese which is how our guide described the native dialect that Q-Boo spoke and understood - "It's like Cantonese with a twist.") Words change based on how you say them, but they also change according to context in the sentence. So, the sound "ma" can mean "mother" or "linen" or "horse" or "scold" depending on the tone that is used.  But the same sound, with the same tone, can mean "ant" or "agate" or "horse" or "yard," all depending on the context of the word within the sentence.  Confused, yet?

There is Pinyin, which literally means "spelled-out sounds," and is where the Chinese characters are written with the Latin alphabet, but I find it cumbersome and inaccurate. The word "Qin" from the Qin Dynasty, sounds nothing like what you'd guess it would sound like simply by looking at the English letters.  In fact, I can't even really write down for you how to say Luna's Chinese name. Next time you see me, ask me how to say it. I'll bumble around until I finally get it right. Then, ask me how to say Q-Boo's name, that one's hard, too.  In fact, I'll write both their names down in the Pinyin and then, together, we can try to figure out how to get the sounds from those letters.  They tell me that I'll be able to accurately read Pinyin once I have more practice.

We'll see.

7-2-15
"Erica's Moon"
Bakersfield, California

 

"It's true...you were an orphan. It's my job to change that."

-Once Upon a Time

What an audacious and ridiculous thing to believe that you can do for someone. Change their whole life? !  But I do believe it, I choose to believe it, and I won't stop until it's done. There is good in the world, there is. Love wins. I'd stake everything on it. I am staking everything on it.