What, is the necklace too much?
Having Fun in the Wagon
Sisters stick together!
A tisket, a tasket, a cute girl with her Easter basket!
Hannah scored an egg.Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.
Sarah Ban Breathnach
It is time to document some reality about parenting in general. It is a romantic vocation, by that we mean that when you sit down to discuss it with other people, you tend to romanticize it and you forget about the stuff that makes it real. Well here is our reality check.
Elainea is still having night terrors, which means Pam has gone about three months with inconsistent sleep. We were hoping that maybe once the language barrier had been breached then they would subside. We guess only time will tell. She has been through so many things that she does not understand.At first we would tell everyone how well she listened and obeyed. Well that stage has officially passed. Case in point, she used to pull out her changing pad, diaper and wipes when she needed her diaper changed. Well she no longer sees the need to change her diaper because she is too busy. One must first detect the potty infraction and wrestle her down to the diaper pad. Then it is like a pit stop in stock car racing because she does not have time for more than a 40 second pit stop. What happens when you have crossed the timeline? Well she gets up and off she runs laughing at our incompetence.We took her to the dentist and she is missing two teeth on the bottom. In addition the dentist is strongly suggesting we do a root canal and cap the front tooth that is grey. A cap on a baby tooth, does that sound absurd to anyone else? Moreover he wants to put her out to do that, take x-rays (to see if she will have permanent teeth where she is missing her two baby teeth), perform a cleaning, and seal her back molars. Once again Joe and Pam come from two different perspectives. Joe thinks the doctor is just out for our money, whereas Pam is more apt to trust the dentist’s opinion. Some people advise us to get a second opinion from another dentist. This is going to sound like a lame excuse, but we just do not have the energy or ambition to do it. It is like the saying from Larry the Cable Guy keeps going off in the back of our heads “Get her done!”Leaving the dentist was another adventure. While trying to work out the insurance and billing, Elainea decided that it was time she go see what the dentist is doing to all of the other kids. Pam asked her to come back to Mommy. She turned and smiled at her and started running! Pam chased her through three exams rooms. Then the minute we get out the front door Miss Elainea thinks that it is time to run around in the parking lot. Being the self-sufficient two-year-old that she is, she does not need to hold any person’s hand because she can run out in front of a car as well as they can! That puts a few grey hairs on your head! Meanwhile we are trying to put together a case to present in small claims court. The stucco was installed incorrectly on our house and it is going to cost a small fortune to get it fixed. Unfortunately we can not find all of the documentation that we need. We know we have it because we have enough “documentation” of various kinds to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. So we continue to wade through the waves of paper until we find what we need.On a positive note we did get her social security number last month and her citizenship papers a couple of weeks ago. We have also retained an attorney that is preparing our petition of readoption. This process will put her into the vital statistics system and she will receive a birth certificate from the State of Utah. We can file the petition now, but we can not go to family court until she has been in our home for six months. This means that we should be through the adoption paperwork in August!Elainea has a blanket phobia. She refuses to sleep with covers. This means that she is even more prone to rolling off the bed. We had to fortify the bed so she will not roll off. She still reluctantly takes a nap. She has come to the conclusion that the most exciting things in life happen while she is asleep. When we lay her down because she is so tired that she is bumping into walls, she lays there moving her legs up and down so she doesn’t drift off. I feel so cruel in making her lay there, sometimes it takes her about three hours to get in a forty-five minute nap. So much for the idea of post-institutionalized kids craving structure and routine, or at least when nap is part of it!Pam has returned to work and so Elainea has started to go to daycare three days a week. It is obvious that Pam is having a harder time of it than Elainea. Elainea loves the idea of having tables and chairs in her size that she can push around all day. Her teachers love her as well as all of the kids in Hannah’s class.We suspect that Elainea is lactose intolerant. She has had diarrhea since the first day she became part of our family. Little did we know that over 90% of Asian Americans are lactose intolerant. We are going to put her on rice milk to see if that helps.With all that has been said, please do not think that we are complaining. We are not. We have been given so much and are so grateful. We are so grateful for our wonderful family and friends! We have seen a medical miracle with the ongoing recovery of Pam’s aunt. She considers her to be her second mother. We look forward to they day she can meet Elainea.
Sarah Ban Breathnach
It is time to document some reality about parenting in general. It is a romantic vocation, by that we mean that when you sit down to discuss it with other people, you tend to romanticize it and you forget about the stuff that makes it real. Well here is our reality check.
Elainea is still having night terrors, which means Pam has gone about three months with inconsistent sleep. We were hoping that maybe once the language barrier had been breached then they would subside. We guess only time will tell. She has been through so many things that she does not understand.At first we would tell everyone how well she listened and obeyed. Well that stage has officially passed. Case in point, she used to pull out her changing pad, diaper and wipes when she needed her diaper changed. Well she no longer sees the need to change her diaper because she is too busy. One must first detect the potty infraction and wrestle her down to the diaper pad. Then it is like a pit stop in stock car racing because she does not have time for more than a 40 second pit stop. What happens when you have crossed the timeline? Well she gets up and off she runs laughing at our incompetence.We took her to the dentist and she is missing two teeth on the bottom. In addition the dentist is strongly suggesting we do a root canal and cap the front tooth that is grey. A cap on a baby tooth, does that sound absurd to anyone else? Moreover he wants to put her out to do that, take x-rays (to see if she will have permanent teeth where she is missing her two baby teeth), perform a cleaning, and seal her back molars. Once again Joe and Pam come from two different perspectives. Joe thinks the doctor is just out for our money, whereas Pam is more apt to trust the dentist’s opinion. Some people advise us to get a second opinion from another dentist. This is going to sound like a lame excuse, but we just do not have the energy or ambition to do it. It is like the saying from Larry the Cable Guy keeps going off in the back of our heads “Get her done!”Leaving the dentist was another adventure. While trying to work out the insurance and billing, Elainea decided that it was time she go see what the dentist is doing to all of the other kids. Pam asked her to come back to Mommy. She turned and smiled at her and started running! Pam chased her through three exams rooms. Then the minute we get out the front door Miss Elainea thinks that it is time to run around in the parking lot. Being the self-sufficient two-year-old that she is, she does not need to hold any person’s hand because she can run out in front of a car as well as they can! That puts a few grey hairs on your head! Meanwhile we are trying to put together a case to present in small claims court. The stucco was installed incorrectly on our house and it is going to cost a small fortune to get it fixed. Unfortunately we can not find all of the documentation that we need. We know we have it because we have enough “documentation” of various kinds to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. So we continue to wade through the waves of paper until we find what we need.On a positive note we did get her social security number last month and her citizenship papers a couple of weeks ago. We have also retained an attorney that is preparing our petition of readoption. This process will put her into the vital statistics system and she will receive a birth certificate from the State of Utah. We can file the petition now, but we can not go to family court until she has been in our home for six months. This means that we should be through the adoption paperwork in August!Elainea has a blanket phobia. She refuses to sleep with covers. This means that she is even more prone to rolling off the bed. We had to fortify the bed so she will not roll off. She still reluctantly takes a nap. She has come to the conclusion that the most exciting things in life happen while she is asleep. When we lay her down because she is so tired that she is bumping into walls, she lays there moving her legs up and down so she doesn’t drift off. I feel so cruel in making her lay there, sometimes it takes her about three hours to get in a forty-five minute nap. So much for the idea of post-institutionalized kids craving structure and routine, or at least when nap is part of it!Pam has returned to work and so Elainea has started to go to daycare three days a week. It is obvious that Pam is having a harder time of it than Elainea. Elainea loves the idea of having tables and chairs in her size that she can push around all day. Her teachers love her as well as all of the kids in Hannah’s class.We suspect that Elainea is lactose intolerant. She has had diarrhea since the first day she became part of our family. Little did we know that over 90% of Asian Americans are lactose intolerant. We are going to put her on rice milk to see if that helps.With all that has been said, please do not think that we are complaining. We are not. We have been given so much and are so grateful. We are so grateful for our wonderful family and friends! We have seen a medical miracle with the ongoing recovery of Pam’s aunt. She considers her to be her second mother. We look forward to they day she can meet Elainea.
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