Summertime Pooltime

Not having a pool in the backyard has been quite the adjustment for us, but it's also been a really good opportunity for the boys to make lots of new friends. Apparently, the pool is the hot spot to hang out. Every Friday night there is a cookout party at the pool. G&C took the swim test and are allowed to go anytime to the pool by themselves because there is a lifeguard on duty, which is a nice perk when you have 2 younger kids.

So last night I dusted off the camera and snapped some pool photos, finally.

The boys did a lot of really bad Olymp*c D*ving and I'm pretty certain that C should figure out a better way to use his head...

Let's discuss it...can we? I need thoughts.

Recently If found myself in a situation where I didn't know what to do, what to say or how to approach the situation. So it got me thinking that this would be a good topic to throw out there to you. So I'm calling on all of you, the parents of adoptive children, that have children old enough to explain how they feel in certain situations.

Being that we just moved to this new location, I am seeing a lot of Asian children with white families, a pretty good indicator that they are also an adoptive family.

As I stood inside of Target waiting for the dumping rain to stop falling, I waited with 2 other white Mom's, each with their Asian child, assuming of course it was their child. I didn't have EG with me, so I said nothing. I thought it would neat to chat and pass the time, but I certainly didn't want to say anything that might make the middle school girl feel uncomfortable.

Is there a proper way to strike up a conversation?

I would never want to make a little girl feel awkward at an age where she 'gets it'...

So I just wanted some thoughts on that, some discussion, some ways you've been able to strike up a conversation without your Asian child by your side so that it doesn't come across as the nosey nobody, but instead a shared experience, another connection for my own child to make that there are many families in the world that look just like hers.

Boy, I suck.

So we've moved to a new location & it's beautiful.

My girl is blossoming, growing & changing every day....down to the small fact that she has decided to self potty train herself and she's been in big girl panties for about a week now. We are super proud of her!

My boy started high school football and he's growing and changing and becoming a man right before my eyes. He's growing hair & his feet, legs & toes are just huge,all.of.a.sudden.

And I haven't taken out my camera for zip. I suckity suck suck.

We've made some fun memories with our fun new neighbors and no pictures for that either.

We've painted, decorated and have plans for more improvements, but no photos of that either.

EG made a cute new friend at the pool who was brought home from China 4 years ago. No photos of that either.

My boys are loving life in the creek, in the pool & with their new friends hanging out & we have nothing to show for that either.

I really do suck. The whole summer of 2010 will have never existed in my photo albums if I don't get a little more mojo to get the camera snapping.

Just wanted to acknowledge my really bad memory making mad mommy skills.

Hanging with my Ga peeps!

Thank you all for your understanding in my last post & unfortunately, I'll keep posting that same message because I'm pretty certain that not everybody that reads this blog just so happened to check it this morning=0)

Moving on....

We went to visit my friend, Pug*Mama, this past weekend. EG was super excited to be seeing her LL and somewhere between listening & laughing to Ge0rge Bush give us directions on the GPS and singing along to Train, I realized that I was kind of digging the Ga life. Who knew?!?

So below is a hodgepodge of photos from our time with the PM family. It was just so odd to see our boys playing so well together. As many times as we've girls have played together, we've never considered that our boys might be hanging out together....again, who knew?!?!

One Year Home with our daughter

During the move and our lack of Internet, I wasn't able to acknowledge our one year mark with our sweet EG. As I've blogged about in the past, there will be no "g0tcha day" parties, no "f0rever family" day parties or anything else that will turn my daughters loss into a party for her family to celebrate. Her story is to big for a party, as her Mother though, I will forever cherish May 24, 2oo9 as one of the greatest days of my entire existence.

We walked into a busy room and a complete stranger handed me a stunned little girl and walked away. I immediately loved her for exactly who she was. She was the dream that my soul had longed for my entire life. May 24, 2oo9 was nothing but a huge day of happiness from my perspective. May 24, 2oo9 was nothing but another huge loss for my daughter. She did gain a family that will love her forever, but she lost her entire life that day. She lost her homeland, her culture, every scent that she recognized, every face that cared for her, every Ch*nese word ever spoken to her, every piece of clothing, toy or lovey that she knew of, all familiar foods were gone to her, every thread of her entire being was lost to her on that day. Her grief was heavy, her anxiety high. We've spent the past year working hard on healing her wounded heart. The scars are there, they always will be, but those scars are also the glue of who she is. Nobody lives a perfect life or a life without pain. These are EG's roots that are molding her into the young lady she is growing up to be.

What a difference a year makes. For most of you, you know the pain and anxiety that my daughter suffered from for the first 3 months home. I can hardly recognize her as that same little girl. She's do darn confident and happy that it's easy to forget how fragile she can be. Her fierce love of life is nothing short of heroism. I will forever be grateful for the long journey to Ch*na that led both our paths on the right track to meet exactly at that moment on May 24, 2oo9. Thankful is all I feel one year later.

Thankful for:

the pain of the wait

the total annoyance of paper work

the long flight over there

the agency who was nothing short of perfect

the social worker that redid my paperwork 3 times

the pain in the ass gov't who messed up my paperwork and lost it 4 times

the long flight over

the man who held my daughter in that busy room till we walked in

the man who sat down and shed a few tears in the background of my video while he watched our first few moments with our daughter

My daughter's birth parents who choose life for her

Her foster parents that loved her till we could

the orphanage that did the best they could for her

whomever the anonymous person was that spread our family file out on their desk and matched us with L*ng Wan Hu

& to the Pe0ple's Republic of Ch*na for allowing us to raise one of you own.

Thank you.

a GA update

We've been enjoying some fun down time with our old neighbors this week. M's dear husband is flying out today and she's going to stay another week with the 4 kids. So with 8 kids on the scene all the time, life is busy!

This is the first time that I've actually been out of the house to see what's what in our new neck of the woods. The community that we picked seems to have a lot of fun stuff going on, thank goodness. The kids have been hanging out in the woods behind our house and playing in the creek. We have lots of little walking trails that go throughout the woods around the community. They've met lots of friends that hang out with them in the woods and play on the rope swings and other crap that they've created. There is a rec center where I can send the big kids to go swimming and they've met lots of new friends there. We've met and made an immediate connection with our neighbors that have 2 little boys. She's a lot like me and we had a really good time hanging out chatting & sipping one to many cocktails=0)

Location wise: I think we picked a fabulous location. We are really close to everything and I can't say enough about how incredibly nice everyone is, southern hospitality is alive and well folks! That is something that paradise was lacking in every aspect, common courtesy had been long thrown out the window in exchange for rudeness.

I enrolled G in high school and his class load is very heavy. All AP courses with no break. He has some summer reading and testing to get done and football starts for him next week. He's very excited about his new school.

We tried the lake life out this weekend and are making plans to return this weekend. I'm holding out hope that it will become something fabulous. It's not the gulf and it's not as wonderful as my beautiful island, but it's different and new. We did find a little island to beach on and the kids explored the little island and swam in the fresh lake water. The kids were all a little surprised by the lack of salt in the water;0) When we were leaving we heard about a big beach and we are looking forward to checking that out soon. The lake is huge and I think we could spend a lifetime exploring it and never see the same thing twice.

So with all that being said, life in GA has been good for us so far. EG has made a smooth

transition and I haven't taken one single migraine pill since arriving. It is good to be back together as a family and we are beginning to feel the groove. We've spent much time on the house repainting the upstairs and still have much to do, but we are at a resting place to enjoy our company and the new world around us.

My new backyard. This is the creek behind our home.

A little nature hike on the trails.

0ur Final Fl0rida Farewell

Whoooo, what a week!
I left parad*se 2 weeks & 2 days ago and said goodbye to everyone I count as my family. Not going to lie and say it was easy. The boys and I sobbed for a good 3 hours up the interstate. It was a parade of goodbyes for 2 solid days and as the final night turned into early morning, I locked up the house that I love and handed my martini key over to the new owner. What’s done is done. I will always call paradise ‘Home’, it is where my heart is and I think my soul will forever rest on *sland time. I arrived with 3 not so happy boys and 1 confused little girl and dog at 7:00pm to our new place. My very handsome husband walked out and met me at the car. I think I literally collapsed on the spot. I sobbed in his arms for a good 15 minutes and I shivered. It was cold. Not like the May parad*se heat we had experienced for several months. The kids ran off to check out their new home while I dreaded taking my first steps inside. I felt like I was cheating on my home and I wanted nothing to do with it. I know that a lot of my fear comes from the 2 years of misery when we moved back to WV. It was the exact same week almost 8 years ago that I welcomed a new life and instead was dealt the death of my Dad and Papaw. The dates are all frightening the same.
As Col would tell me repeatedly, “You are not going back to WV, this is different and new, don’t think of it the same.” I focused on those words for 9 hours up the road.
Saturday morning, we were greeted by 3 Southern Gentlemen that PM's DH had sent over to help us unload the trucks. There is very little in life that I know with 100% certainty, but I do know this: There is no damn way in hell that we could have done it without them! We will be forever grateful for their help. They were so kind and eager that a part of me began to view this GA thing differently.
EG was extremely happy to see her Daddy and she spent the following few days in the Erg0. I felt it necessary to keep her close to me so she felt safe during this crazy transition period where all of our crap was was completely disorganized. She was a trooper and she did great. I didn’t see any ‘shut down’ moments or any meltdowns. She would nap on my back in the Ergo and we all made sure we were there for her at every moment of the day.
THE SHORT & SKINNY OF EACH of US…
Daddy: He is super happy to be back with his family. He celebrated right after our arrival (29th) and I can tell that the 40’s are not going to be kind to him;0)
G: Still claims he never cried, but he sobbed right along with me all the way to GA. He won the Pres*dential Silver Award at his school and several others sent texts & emails about other awards he received. We are still waiting for them to arrive in the mail to see what his standings were when he left middle school.

He also seems to be the most excited about his school and life in GA.

C: Cried himself to sleep in my arms the first night, but quickly warmed up to this GA thing when kids came knocking and he went playing in that creek behind our house. We caught him on day 2 with water ski’s and poles from my shoe rack trying to ski down the cliff to the creek. No fear I tell ya. He also found a best bud very quickly beside us shares his name, which make things tricky when I yell it out!

W: He’s pretty damn happy wherever he is, as long as there is food=0) Not kidding. He also become best buds with the boy beside us in the cul-de-sac named Will. He also told his Mom upon the first meeting that 'You're pretty cute"...yeah, he's a playboy like that.

EG: Has transitioned beautifully. For the last 2 months, we were flying solo in Parad*se while Daddy was working in GA. It sucked for her & me. She was a hot mess and I blogged about it. She constantly needed to know the whereabouts of her family members. “Daddy Ge0rgia” she would announce to every Tom, Dick and Harry. We taught her to follow it up with “Daddy Ge0rgia, Mommy Fl0rida, EG Fl0rida, etc….” Now she does role call and we are all in Ge0rgia. Something clicked in her once we arrived here and met Daddy and all of her toys and familiar stuff started arriving. It’s as if she got it. I am optimistically cautious. But she seems more settled. She’s not acting out, but instead she’s her sweet self. She has slept and napped with no issues, to the point where I felt like the waters were safe enough to scoot her crib into her own room & she has continued to do well. It’s as if all is well again in her little world and she can now relax. Not sure, but I’m watching her closely for any behavioral issues that might translate into all the other issues of PT**SD/attachment/sens0ry overload/ or anything else on the freak out scale of life with a special need child. & as if that wasn't enough, she has decided that she’d like it very much if I’d remove her diaper and rush her to the potty when she likes. We weren't planning planning on potty training till the kids went back to school and life was more settled, but EG would like us to move that plan up, I'm trying.

Me: I'm actually doing better than I ever imagined that I would. I've only let the 'f*&% U' word slip once since receiving a very special text photo of my girlfriend on *sland time....& that's the part I will miss the most. I've been very busy getting our home life settled and since I have a deep longing to decorate all things new, I've been busy! However, we already have our first house guests here and I've been learning how to relax and enjoy life, even in the midst of a non perfect home. I must admit, I'm enjoying the Ga life better than I ever thought that I would.

More to come soon, now that I have my wireless Internet up and running!