Archive for February, 2009
One of Ava’s favorite words is outside. She combines this with go, go, go which is her way of letting us know that she wants to go, well, outside.
J is gone right now so it’s all me, all the time. This means that getting home with Ava is always a chaotic mess with 3 dogs who are just dying to go outside and a hungry, hungry kid who is ready to eat. Usually Ava will head right to the high chair so I’ll plunk her in there while I take the dogs out.
Outside must have been too tempting today since it was 65 degrees and sunny so Ava decided she’d go with me to put the dogs out. She was having such a blast running about the back yard that I had to sneak back in to grab the camera. I don’t have a whole lot of action shots – not because I didn’t take them – but because she was zooming around so much they all came out blurry. But I did get some of her in the few moments she stood (or sat) still.
Blurry action shot:
Standing still for a brief moment:
Taking a break:
What a face:
Oops – she tripped:
Photographic proof that I am a bad parent (instead of immediately picking her up to soothe her I snapped the picture first and then dusted her off):
Another first moment – her very first grass stain (I’m so proud):
We had lots more running around and playing with sticks before hunger finally won out and she headed back to the house. She got all brave on me and decided that she was going to walk up the deck steps by herself.
Or maybe not:
And even though it was her idea to come back inside – this is the face I got when I strapped her into the highchair and told her no more outside.
Broken-hearted:
Guess what came in the mail today?
Ava’s official US birth certificate listing J and I as her parents. We’ve been waiting (impatiently) on this since her readoption was completed so it was a very pleasant surprise to open the mailbox and see it waiting there for me.
I was a little weepy when I opened it up and saw it. This means a lot to us – on both an emotional level and on a practical level – and is the main reason we went through all the hassle of readopting her in Virginia. We didn’t have to since her adoption was complete and legal in China but this was the only way we could get a VA birth certificate so we sucked it up and did it.
I don’t know why but (emotionally) it makes everything seem a bit more real to see it laid out in black and white on an official US document naming us as her parents. I guess because we’re conditioned over the years that a birth certificate is like the gold standard of identity documents but it also hit me that she now has a birth certificate just like everybody else’s – one that lists her parents’ names and isn’t in a foreign language requiring explanations and translations every time we have to produce it. Before this she only had a Chinese birth certificate which truly pained me every single time I looked at it. Trust me, it’s really, really hard to look at your much loved and desperately wanted child’s documents and see the words ‘Abandoned – Parents Unknown.’ I know what they mean but I just wanted to protest and say that her (now) parents ARE known. Not to mention that I didn’t want her or us to have to answer nosy questions down the road when we did have to provide her birth certificate for things like school enrollment nor did I want that on file for anyone to see – if it’s painful for me to see it then I have to assume it will be for her at some point in her future.
I don’t know – is this a big deal to others or is it just me? Will it matter to Ava? I don’t know that either. Maybe she’ll think we’re trying to wipe away her Chinese birth identity or maybe she won’t even think of it at all. Regardless, it’s a big deal to us (J and I) right now (we’re her parents, y’all – officially!) and we’re happy that the commonwealth finally got around to sending it only 5 months after the judge signed the final order of adoption.
Not that I was counting or anything.
One of our main reasons for attending our local FCC Chinese New Year celebration this year was because one of the other children adopted at the same time and from the same province/SWI as Ava was lives just south of us and we knew we’d see them there. In fact, we’d arranged to share a table with them and I was looking forward to catching up with the whole family and seeing Ava and their little one together.
Except they’re not so little anymore, are they?
This was from the the red couch photo session at the White Swan in Guangzhou in January ’08.
And this was the white couch version taken in February ’09. We snuck out into the lobby to try and get a shot of the two girls. Not a problem…they apparently had some catching up to do so they settled in for a short chat.
Until, that is, Ava decided they’d talked enough and that running across the lobby seemed infinitely more appealing than sitting for photos. Ava took off…
… but soon discovered she was missing a partner in crime and came back to urge her to follow in the madcap dash to escape the ‘papa’razzi who was still taking pictures.
It was great to see their whole family and to catch up with so many others, including a couple of friends who are STILL waiting (3 years and counting now) for their referrals.
Sorry for the poor-ish photo quality. The couch was located down a hallway and the lighting was funky.
I fear I’m slacking on the blog posts and it’s not for lack of things happening. Au contraire, mon frere. There’s so much going on that I can’t seem to catch up long enough to sit down and sort out my thoughts and the accompanying photos.
We continue with our ongoing battle against sickness. I guess I underestimated the amount of germs one tiny little toddler can bring into the house – namely the flu this time (for real, the flu) that only sideswiped her (thank goodness for the flu shot) but knocked me for a loop for a solid week (thanks for nothing, Tricare provided flu shot). I was totally out for 2 days – the kind of out where I didn’t even get out of bed and I slept for nearly 48 hours straight – while J (aka the househusband) completely took care of Ava while force feeding me Tylenol to keep my fever down and ice chips to ensure I didn’t dehydrate and die. I did manage to lose about 8 pounds over the course of a week which made me very, very happy although I’m slowly putting it back on now that food is palatable again. I missed 2 days of work and should have stayed out a third since I did nothing but cough and whine all day about how crappy I felt, missed one of my night classes which has put me a week behind where I should be, and have been playing catch up since.
I also had a not pleasant doctor visit (pre-flu sickness) that freaked me out and had me convinced I was going to die for a couple of weeks. Now granted, I tend to overreact and Dr. Google everything which is NOT what I would recommend doing, but my doctor seriously scared me and put me through a gamut of tests that have fortunately all come back clear. D*mn military doctor – and people wonder why I work to maintain civilian insurance so I don’t have to rely on them for my health care. Said doctor also put me on topa.max for my migraines which did nothing to prevent the headaches but turned me into a zombie like mama that wanted to do nothing but sleep all the freaking time. They also gave me some major weird neurological side effects that probably contributed to the gonna die soon freak out I was having. Needless to say I have discontinued the topa.max and will deal with the headaches. When I’m consistently too tired to take a walk through the neighborhood with J and Ava or to interact with my family then something has to go and the topa.max was it. I detoxed off of it while I was recovering from the flu and am finally starting to feel like my old self again (note the midnight posting). FWIW, I did get a second opinion on the first doctor’s diagnosis/ideas and my civilian doctor has told me I’m fine. I meet with the military doctor on Friday to get a full report on all my test results and I plan to read him the riot act on bedside manner and the proper delivery of medical concerns you may have about a patient before actually having definitive answers.
I’ll be doing back dated posts over the next couple of days. I have a photo post to do that has Ava doing a remarkable impression of the Stay-puf marshmallow kid in her snowsuit purchased in NY that hasn’t seen even one flake of snow here in VA (but it has come in very handy for some of the cold, cold weather) and a summary (and photos) from our local FCC Chinese New Year’s celebration. We had a great time except the food sucked – but Ava totally dug the whole vibe and actually ventured away from us to go play on the dance floor with the other kids. So cute.
The paperchase for #2 is turning into quite the struggle. So far I’ve had my fingerprints declined twice because they can’t get a clear enough set of prints and we’re still waiting on criminal records checks from our time in England. I think they’re on the way to us now though and our homestudy should be complete soon after. Then we wait for USCIS approval (60+ days, probably) and we just might be dossier to China by June. It’s taking a whole lot longer these days due to the new Hague regulations.
And now I’m off to bed…
