Be Well {Updated}

Self-care is a big buzz word these days. I don’t know what it is, but that term always makes me feel a little queasy. It makes me think of cleaning a wound or something equally unappealing. This, perhaps, is because I’ve never had a strong stomach. I gave blood last week and looked the other way the entire time. 

But my wimpiness aside, I do believe in taking care of yourself and not just in the get enough sleep, drink enough water, eat enough veggies kind of way. I believe in feeding your soul.

To me feeding my soul means good books, lazy lounging tv with a cup of tea (Cranford, Call the Midwives, The Land Girls, Kingdom and Doc Martin, who incidentally faints at the sight of blood) and enjoying life’s pleasures, big and small.

I find I always can enjoy myself more if my mind and my life are less cluttered. Gretchin Rubin talks about this principle in her book, Happier At Home. You can read an excerpt of it here. But here’s a snippet, “I've often heard that happiness is having less. But as I cleared clutter, I learned that happiness is not having less or more. Happiness is wanting — and using — what I have. No matter how nicely organized, useless things make clutter.”

Here are three practical ways to declutter and make more room for joy in your life today: 

1. According to the Federal Trade Commission, you can opt-out of prescreened credit offers by calling toll-free 1-888-5-OPT-OUT (1-888-567-8688) or visiting www.optoutprescreen.com.

2. Get rid of unwanted catalogs using CatalogChoice.org.

3. Put all of your appointments on an online calendar. I use Cozi. It’s free, and you can access it from your phone or computer. It color codes each appointment by family member, and it gives you the option of emailing calendar items to other family members.

Live well, love well.

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UPDATE: Want an additional way to be well? There’s a new adoption retreat, Called to Love, taking place in Oregon in November for adoptive and foster moms. Learn more about it here.

Shut The Front Door

Except that it’s not really the front door. It’s really the door leading into the house from the garage. But that wasn’t very catchy. 

Regardless, it’s not the location of the door that was at issue, but the size. 

The door leading to the wheelchair ramp, was unfortunately, too small. We either needed to reverse the way it swung or get a new door. 

Ultimately, we opted for a  wider door.

A wider door equaled a weekend project and, became, rather unintentionally, a group participation event.

My husband provided the labor.

The neighbors came by, checking on all the banging and offering their help. 

Luk Chaai made a sign reminding us all not to go past the plastic (if only the wind had listened). He also sat in the garage, in both appropriate and inappropriate places, and kept up a steady stream of questions.

Ying did a bit of hammering on an adjoining wall, and fully intact, wall.

At one point she pronounced herself “swea-shy,” and we convinced her to call it a day.

No such entreaties were made of her much “swea-shy” father.

Minus some drywall patching that still needs to be done, the door is ready.

Everyone is understandably proud of their contribution.

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Two additional tidbits:

- You need an RX for the ramp if it’s going through insurance.

- We are going to add a magnetic door stop, so that no one will need to hold the door open for Ying.

Linking up to Sunday Snapshot at www.nihaoyall.com

Attachment and the Adopted Child

I’m no parenting expert. In fact, sometimes, I’m the parent who wants to pull her kid out of Toys R’ Us by his hair.

But what I have learned is that I tend to get more practical information from friends/blogs/real life experiences than I have any books on parenting, adoption or the like. I think that’s because while I appreciate the theory, I need more of the application.

These are lychee peels. They are bumpy on the outside, yet iridescent and smooth on the inside. I’m pretty sure there’s a life metaphor in there. Plus, lychee are extra delicious!

I think that if I’ve learned one concrete thing about attachment it’s that it is a lot about personality – theirs and yours. There are certainly tangible mile markers you can look for: good eye contact, physical closeness, the lack or presence of hypervigilance, etc…  All of these are documented in the truly wonderful book, Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child: From Your First Hours Together Through the Teen Years by Patty Cogen. Here’s a tidbit from her book that has really stayed with me, from page 105, “In their first two months together, an infant and parent practice eye contact for approximately 200 hours. Parents of an internationally adopted child need to replicate this level of eye contact and face-to-face interaction in order to retrace these early connection steps.”

In the book, Cogen gives a lot of great activity suggestions, one of which we’ve put our own spin on. She suggests singing If You’re Happy and You Know It as a way to learn about feelings. We changed it, and a few other songs, as an expression of affection.

For example, instead of If You’re Happy and You Know It, we sing: If you love Ying and you know it, give her a hug. If you love Ying and you know it give her a hug, etc….

We also sing the song my Nana taught my mom and my momma taught me, Where oh where is dear little Luk Chaai? Where oh where is dear little Luk Chaai? Way down yonder in the pawpaw patch…..

While you can certainly change the words to any song to incorporate names, we particularly like to add names to When the Rooster Wakes Up in the Morning, He always says Cock-a-doodle-do. Cock-a-doodle-do, Cock-a-doodle-do. We sing: When Daddy wakes up in the morning, he always says, Good Morning, Good Morning, etc….  This helps demonstrate that we will be there when they wake up and that we’ll consistently be happy to see them.

While parents of adopted children tend to think more in terms of attachment, a song that promotes bonding is obviously good for everyone. What tunes are you warbling too?

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Two more happys: I made Luk Chaai this family memory game for his birthday a few years back. I got the wooden circles from Michaels. Then I had pictures of each of us printed in duplicate. I ModPodged the pictures to one side and scrapbook paper to another.

I made this alphabet photo book by photographing toys, household items and special people for each letter. D is for Daddy, M for Mommy, G for Grandma and Grandpa and the dog even made it in too.

On Why It’s Not Sad

So it’s pretty self-evident that Ying’s limbs draw a lot of comments from kids, some mean-spirited, many unintentionally funny. But nothing makes me want to whip out my megaphone and soapbox like hearing, “That’s so sad.”

I know these kids are repeating something they’ve heard from their parents. I also know they mean no malice by it. But it really gets me.

Having a limb difference might be a whole holy host of things, but sad isn’t one of them. We recently met a young woman at the mobility dealership who was getting her first car. It had been adapted so that the steering wheel could be controlled with almost no pressure. The able bodied men at the dealership said that they hated driving it during the modification because it was almost impossible for them to steer. That’s not sad – it’s stinking awesome.

A few months back, we had the opportunity to met another congenital quad. He was on the floor playing with Ying. When we all went to get up, he practically catapulted up from the floor on his prosthetics while I was still trying to get my legs underneath me. It wasn’t sad, it was impressive.

Sad is children going to bed hungry. Sad is the people that you love never knowing it. Sad is not living out your God-given purpose because you’re crippled by the fear of failure.

People who are differently abled don’t need you to take out a hanky for them, unless you’re going to cry at how beautifully they get on with the business of living. But they probably don’t want that either, it might only serve to embarrass them.

The Wheel Chair Minivan, Part II

After much confusion and many headaches, we finally bought a minivan and are having it converted for wheelchair rear entry.

We were able to get all of the things we wanted: automatic ramp, rear entry, two wheelchair tie downs, the wheelchair is almost parallel to the second row, and an optional fold-down third row. 

Ultimately, our decision came down to the Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna. We chose the Toyota because when you open the hatch and lower the ramp, the rear of the car squats. As a result, it uses a shorter ramp than if the wheel chair had to climb the ramp at a steeper angle. We thought a shorter ramp was better because it requires less roadway and makes backing into traffic a bit safer. 

Buying this van, like much of parenting, had us scratching our heads and asking, ‘Where is the step-by-step instruction guide for this?’ Here are a few things we wish we had known ahead of time.

Every mobility dealership coverts their vans just a little bit differently. They just don’t exactly tell you that. More than once we were told, “ohh it’s not possible to do it like that.” The kicker is that we knew this wasn’t true. We’d gone to the Abilities Expo some months back and made it a point to sit in numerous vans even though we weren’t in the market for one at the time. What the mobility places mean is THEY don’t covert vans like that.

Not every mobility location has all of the various conversions available on the lot. That makes it difficult because you are being shown brochures versus the actual car. For someone like me who is visual, this made it that much harder.

Mobility locations don’t offer the same financing that dealerships do. Mobility locations offer financing on both the cars and the conversions. The problem was that the deals were not nearly as good as what we could get buying the car directly from the dealership. For example, Toyota was offering 0% financing and cash back incentives. However, even if I purchased a brand new Toyota from the mobility location and financed the car though them, they couldn’t give me 0% financing or the cash back incentive.

Most conversions aren’t done on site. The cars are shipped to a few various locations across the country. Because of that, it’s likely that your car will be shipped and you’ll pay shipping both ways. Shipping coming home will be more expensive because shipping fees are incurred based on weight and your car will be heavier post-conversion.

What we ultimately did was buy the van from a Toyota dealership in Michigan. We don’t live in Michigan, but it’s the state where the conversion will take place. This lets us take advantage of Toyota financing and only pay shipping one way.

There was a small downside to the route we chose. For starters, we purchased our exact vehicle sight unseen. Secondly, there was a small amount more coordination required in dealing with two locations instead of just one-stop shopping from the mobility dealership. Lastly, when the car arrives we’ll need to register it with our local DMV.

Part III to come when the van arrives. If you missed it, here’s Part I.

Better With Butter

What’s better with butter? Well, everything of course.

Because of that we did something this week that I haven’t done since kindergarten. And, no, it wasn’t eat paste.

We made homemade butter.

Butter making is really just some rather vigorous shaking of whipping cream.

Luk Chaai shook the jar with an alarming amount of energy, given that we were dealing with glass.

Ying couldn’t really shake the jar. But that didn’t stop her from helping. She rolled and kicked it, which was also effective.

The results? 

Quite tasty, if I do say so myself.

I think the dropout rates in schools would be markedly lower if food-making didn’t end in kindergarten.

Let them eat cake? No, let them make butter!

Lovely bits of tacky junk

Some dear friends will hopefully travel to meet their little girl very, very soon. In preparation for their long plane ride, we put together a care package – of junk – for her and her older brothers.

Like everyone else working to be a “good” parent, we are big fans of wooden toys and imaginative play. But we’ve discovered that the little bits of cheapo, junkity junk have their place. They are essential for car trips and adoption travel.

Why is the junk essential for these trips? For starters, many kids in international adoption situations haven’t had a lot of exposure to toys. So something that may entertain a typical toddler or preschooler for half an hour (or at least five minutes), won’t hold the same entertainment value for a newly adopted child.

To take care of all of the red-tape adoption-related stuff, we traveled around quite a bit. The odds that something is going to get lost or mislaid when you go from plane, to taxi, to hotel shuttle, to sky train is pretty good no matter how vigilant you are. While your child may mourn the loss of the $1 toy deeply, you won’t.

If the U.S. Embassy is one of your stops, know that they will confiscate all cell phones, toy cell phones, electronics and battery-operated toys, even the ones that make animal sounds, upon entry into the building. They will not, however, take the things you found at the Target Dollar Spot.

We’re going to be wrapping the things we send because wrapping adds to the level or surprise and makes the toy last 30 seconds longer. We’ll use crepe paper to wrap the light-up ring into a surprise ball with little stickers hidden to be found during the unwrapping. The crepe paper makes a mess, but it’s fun to turn into necklaces or to “wrap” kids with. (We make these surprise balls for our Christmas stockings too.)

Do you know someone who’s traveling soon? Bless them with junk!

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The other things we couldn’t have traveled without? Ikea stacking cups and little Legos.

Airport McD’s and Legos 20+ hours into the trip.

Wardrobe Function

Who wears the pants?

Ying does!

Or rather, she does now.

Our awesome OT recently made Ying this elastic adaptive device. Now with a minimal amount of help, she can put her own shorts on. Woohoo!

We clip the suspender clips to the back of Ying’s shorts or bloomies (her legs are too short for actual  pants). Then we loop the elastic around the upstairs railing (any sturdy post, such as the legs of a dresser that won’t tip over, would work) and Ying slides her feet into her short’s leg holes. She then scoots forward on her bottom. As she “walks” forward, the elastic pulls her shorts up and into place.

A few notes about this. Ying can close the suspender clips with her feet, but she needs me to open them once the shorts are pulled up. Also, the third time is the charm. Ying tried two other dressing techniques that were only kind of meh. Initially she tried shimmying into her shorts using Dycem and her body weight as resistance. It was somewhat effective, but she could not get her shorts all the way up. Then she tried using a hook to pull up her shorts, but she still needed a fair amount of help to get the shorts all the way up. This is, by far, the best solution. Although she’s done it with several different shorts now, we’ve found it’s easiest when her shorts have an elastic waist and elastic leg holes or are fairly roomy.

Additional wardrobe info:

Ying is always hot (our arms and legs are our radiators, so people with limb differences tend to “run hot.”) and she hates to have her limbs restricted in any way. Because of this, she wears sleeveless tops/dresses and shorts, regardless of the season.  In cooler weather, we’ve just layered by adding Babylegs and sleeveless, hooded puffy vests. She also has a few cardigans she wears too. Thankfully my sister sews and has been able to modify the sweaters to either flutter or cap sleeves. 

But if you (or your sister) can’t sew, all hope is not lost. At Christmas, a sweet friend sent Ying a dress that she rolled the sleeves on, tying them off with ribbon. Not only does this look adorable, but it’s an easy no-sew sleeve fix.  How lucky am I to know such clever people?

Fostering the Sibling Relationship By Encouraging Autonomy

Recently someone commented on how well Ying and Luk Chaai get along. They, most assuredly, have their moments. But we’ve gone from having days that were one big long moment to having days when their jealousies and spats are a bit more spread out.

While Luk Chaai undeniably has the upper hand (literally) most of the time, Ying can give it as good as she gets it. She’s limited in limbs, not lungs.

We’re under no illusions that their developing relationship is the result of us getting things right. We know it’s been more about minimizing the number of things we’ve gotten wrong. Here are a few things that have helped the relationship along, especially in the early days.

1. Mommy and Me/Daddy and Me Time – It was so hard to carve out time for just one child in the beginning (and we only have the two!). We were dealing with jetlag and a flurry of doctor’s appointments. Ying got the flu shortly after we came home and some of us came home with lice. It was good times. Combine that with the holidays and me laying with Ying until she fell asleep at nap and bedtime, this was tough. But everyone needed this. I called my time with Luk Chaai “adventures” and sometimes by accident they were.

One Saturday AM we went looking for fresh strawberries from a strawberry stand. We had a limited amount of time because my husband needed to leave for a funeral. It felt like we drove almost to the state line looking for an open stand and had to hustle back, empty-handed. The funny thing is that Luk Chaai frequently talks about this when we get strawberries now. I’m so glad we made (and still make) the time for these memories.

2. Age Has It’s Privileges – A friend suggested that we let Luk Chaai stay awake 10-15 minutes past his usual bedtime to emphasize he’s older than Ying. Sometimes we were all hanging on by a thread, ready to pass out at bedtime and then he’d remind us “because I’m older and have more responsibilities I get to stay awake more. Okay, mommy? Alright? But you said!” Oh brother!

But the thing is, it kind of worked. We didn’t see magical results after one night of a postponed bedtime, but over time he seemed to appreciate that more was given to him because more was expected of him (even when we fudged on the number of minutes).

3.  Boss for the Night -  I can’t remember where I read about this but it’s definitely a fan favorite. It gets implemented now for fun or when someone’s having a particularly hard day. The designated child becomes “boss” for the night. He or she chooses which chair everyone sits in at dinnertime, who passes out the napkins and who says grace. At the end of the meal, instead of everyone being responsible for clearing their own plates, the boss gets to delegate this job. Everyone loves to be in charge and, of course, gets a kick out of my loud husband’s protests over being bossed about.

4. That’s What I Like About You – This is the cheesiest of all, but desperate times will reduce you to just about anything. Each night at dinner we went around the table and said two things we all liked about each other. Ying’s language skills prevented her from truly contributing in any meaningful way at first. Basically she said our names and then a few indecipherable things.  But she certainly grinned when we said what we liked about her!

Luk Chaai’s compliments were a bit of a stretch at times. In the beginning he just parroted mine and my husband’s or he sort of copped out with a, “I like that she gave me her leftover rice.” Still over time, he began coming up with actual reasons he liked his sister and ones that showed a genuine relationship was budding.

You can’t make kids, biological or adopted, like each other or even need each other. But you can teach them to be respectful of one another. And, you can teach them to like themselves. I think in teaching them to appreciate who they are as individuals, liking those closest to them becomes a natural response.

My, She Was Yar

 

These obviously aren’t from kayaking. I didn’t trust myself to take the camera into the water. These are from the beach when we met Ying.

My husband and I went kayaking over the weekend. We were in the harbour and could see all of the boats docked. Reading the names of the boats was half the fun. There was: The EZ Money III, Got Lucky, High Five and the Molly Brown.

Some of the boats’ names indicated something about the owner, or at least the owner’s profession. Boats like: Doc Time, The Verdict and Grainmaker.

We joked about what we’d name our boat if we had one. We came up with Big Gap and Little Gap, which represents the five teeth Ying and Luk Chaai are missing between the two of them.

But I identified most with the yacht, Blind Faith. Dental issues aside, our boat would probably most appropriately be named after this season in our life. A name like Feeling Our Way in the Dark or Left the Life Jackets at Home seems to fit.

I can’t remember the name of Tracy Lord’s (played by Grace Kelly) boat in High Society. But I do remember her line, “My, she was yar.” This crazy season of our life, well, it’s yar.

P.S. – Another good Tracy Lord line from High Society: “I’m such an unholy mess of a girl.”

P.P.S. – Yar is a nautical term meaning easy to handle, quick to the helm, fast, right. Everything a boat should be. What would (have) you name your boat?

Proof of Life

I recently stumbled across the blog Kids Were Here and I’m hooked. Not only do I love the pictorial proof of the children’s presence, but I also love the message that those messes tell a story.

I’m always thrilled when I capture my kids in the right light and with at least a semi-happy face. Those are the pictures that hang on the walls of our home, the ones I framed for my office. Those pictures tell a story too.

But pictures of the messes, whether you call it documenting the everyday or capturing the ordinary, well, they’re proof of life. Ever since I found this blog, I’ve tried to make a more conscientious effort to capture these little moments of our day, the tableaux of our lives, if you will. These pictures probably won’t make it to the walls, (we need only look at the floor to find them), but these are the pictures I will put in my children’s photo books. This is the way I hope they remember their childhoods. I know I won’t forget.

In the very first pictures I saw of Ying, my eye focused on her missing limbs. Yes, first I saw that dark hair and those piercing, cut to my soul eyes, but then my eye settled on what wasn’t there. 

Photography has helped teach me to see what is there. I don’t need the click of the shutter to tell me my kids are beautiful, but I know that the camera trains my eye to look for that beauty. It teaches me to look at things from a new angle, a fresh perspective. If I want interesting pictures I know I need to isolate the little details from the big picture.

Want to see life, really see it? Take pictures.

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Are you looking for a good photography class? I took 2 of Lisa’s classes from The Long Road to China right after we came home with Ying. Those classes really helped me see our “new” life to the most beautiful light.

3 Myths About Special Needs Families

 

I should preface this by stating the following:

Caveat A: Most days I feel like we hardly qualify as a “special needs family.” Life, quite frankly, is pretty smooth sailing for us. But that’s buying right into the myth that special needs families are people who ‘have it bad.’

Caveat B: At one time or another, I believed all these things. Now that I have a little firsthand knowledge both about my own family and other SN families, I know better.

Okay, all that being said, 3 myths about special need families:

1. Our lives are harder than yours. Umm, nope. You know all of those saying to the effect of ‘everyone is going through something.’ They’re true.

Sure, families with special needs may have some added difficulties, some extra unknowns. The day of a special needs family probably doesn’t look exactly like yours. But, besides the waking up and going to sleep part, most everyone does life a little differently.

Plus, here’s the thing. Families with special needs, like many families dealing with illness or hardship, know a secret. We know, up close and personal, that life is, what it is. It’s more about attitude than outcome. It’s more about today than it is tomorrow. It’s more about relationships than it is real estate.And, baby, we didn’t have to buy a book to learn that. Life kissed us on the forehead and then whispered it good and loud in our ear. 

2. We’re special. Well, of course, we’re special. Just no more so than the average bear.

3. Parents of special needs kids were given an extra heapin’ helping of patience/kindness/[you name it] Really? Where was that line because I sure didn’t manage to stand in it.

Just because we know one of life’s secrets (see #1 above), doesn’t mean we know all of them. What we do have is more opportunities to practice patience, kindness, etc… and certain character traits may grow from that. But that sure as heck is not the same as receiving it on the front-end. 

Want to know something great about going to therapy? PTs and OTs are trained in behavior modification given that they spend all their time getting kids to do things they might not necessarily want to do. Want a free parenting skills class? Go to PT or OT.

I can’t figure out how to end, so I’m going to stop with this quote that was passed on to us, "God doesn’t give children with disabilities to strong people: He gives them to ordinary, everyday people, then He helps the parents to grow stronger through the journey. Raising a child with special needs doesn’t TAKE a special family, it MAKES a special family"

I’m Going to Brush That Man Right Out of My Hair

Remember that song from South Pacific, I’m going to wash that man right out of my hair? Well, Ying hasn’t conquered washing her own hair yet. But if it comes to it, she can now brush that man right out of her hair and send him on his way.

Our OT made this for us. It’s this brush (the long, 14.5”) with an elastic cuff.

 

She can comb the right and most of the left side of her hair and her bangs. She can’t yet reach the back of her head. But hopefully with practice and as she grows a bit, she’ll get there.

Like the aids she uses for eating and writing, she can take this off but needs help putting it on.

Our OT added sticky foam to the handle of the brush and the one side. Ying kept brushing across her face, so now the padding protects her face. The foam on the handle is so the cuff won’t slip (the loop was also sewn closed) and gives Ying additional padding for her arm.

The lavender brush on the left sort of happened by accident. It’s a Dollar Store brush taped to a ruler. Initially our OT thought she could lengthen the handle, but the brush was too heavy. When she got out a ruler to see how long the handle needed to be, the wheels of creativity started spinning. After experimenting  a bit, the brush was taped to the ruler and put in a U-cuff. Ying used it for a bit while we waited for the new brush to arrive. It’s heavier and harder for her to use because she can only brush the right side of her head, but it’s a great example of how sometimes it doesn’t take much.

Some day we’ll probably also mount a hairbrush to the wall, like you can see Nick Vujcic using in this video at 00:40.

Brushing your hair is a small thing and something typically taken for granted. But for one little girl, it’s a giant step of much-coveted independence.

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I consider this a PSA of magnitude proportions. Have a child with tangled, knotty hair? Buy this wet brush. Ying’s hair was always really knotted in the back. We tried every conditioner (spray on, leave-in, etc…). Out of desperation, I even made my own. The conditioner wasn’t the problem,the brush was. This brush works.