The Luxury We Can't Afford

There's a phrase that irritates me. It's "I did the best I could with what I had/or what I knew at the time." It's that qualifier there on the end that gets me. It's like saying "I love you, except when...." or "I'm sorry, but...".

It's understood that you did the best with what you had or what you knew. That's the whole point of doing your best. If you had it all or knew it all, you wouldn't need to do your best. You'd just do it. 

 If you did your best, own it. You gave it all you had. Period. End of story. 

But sometimes we add that qualifier not as an inartful turn of phrase but as a means of justifying ourselves. It's the out we give ourselves when we choose to turn away from inkling, intuition or the hardwork of digging deeper and learning more. It's far easier to claim no outright knowledge than it is to go through the looking glass. We are afraid to cross the point of no return, knowing that we will be charged with what we've seen and heard. 

The luxury of ignorance is a luxury we can't afford. 

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. --Edmund Burke

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Keep Calm and Sing On

A piercing scream let out, so I went running. Given the decibels and duration of the scream, I expected to find blood or grey matter on the concrete. Instead I found water. Ying was trying to pour water from a cup into a spray bottle and lost hold of the cup.

After I refilled the cup I told her she HAD to stop screaming when she was frustrated, remarking “we’re going to have to teach you how to curse instead.”

Grandparents of Ying, fear not, we won’t turn her into a salty sailor. But after I made the offhanded remark, I actually thought about what I’d just said. Ying gets legitimately frustrated and she needs away to work through that frustration. My telling her to quit yelling isn’t helping. I need to show her what to do with that frustration.

We have a calming jar. I actually made it for Luk Chaai but both kids like to look at the falling glitter, particularly when they’re already calm. Thus defeating the purpose. But as fond as I am of the calming jar, I don’t really think it works in this situation. 

Because I have one child who frequently gets compared to a “spider monkey jacked up on Dew,” Ying, Luk Chaai and I do yoga for kids together sometimes. (That’s a Talladega Nights reference,  courtesy of my husband).  So I’m going to try having Ying doing breathing techniques in place of screaming.

But I think the best technique may be to teach her a little song she can hum or sing when she gets frustrated. We’re going to find a song just for this situation and we will sing instead of scream.

I sure hope it works. Of course, if it does, my ears will be kicking me that I didn’t think of it sooner.

Read This, Eat This, Watch This

We were at a nationally recognized children’s hospital last week and I was struck by something. There were no books in the waiting room. None. There was a tv playing a kid’s movie, but that was it.

I’m all for a quiet wait at the doctor’s office, but it made me a little sad. Where was the Highlights for Kids or those books whose stories all had a moral ending? Those modern day Aesop’s fables made a real impression on me. In one story a greedy girl grabbed the biggest cream puff only to discover that it was full of air, not custard. She, of course, learned to be less selfish and more considerate.

I learned something too. To this day, I never take the largest donut or pastry on the off chance that, it as well, may be devoid of gooey goodness.

But all that to say: I love to read and fewer things make me happier than seeing my kids lost in a good book. I’m always looking for book suggestions. Maybe you are too.

Here’s what we’re reading, eating and watching right now.
Reading: Me – Bellow Stairs, Wild Thing: The Art of Nurturing Boys
Them – Families Have Together (this was a library stumble-upon, it’s especially great book for adoptive families); And I Mean It, Stanley

Eating: This zucchini bread (you sugar the pan!), these Asian Pork Sliders and popcorn, the old fashioned way (we skip the staple and just double-fold the bag)

Watching: Life ( tv show about a wrongfully convicted police detective who, when exonerated, rejoins the police force but with a Zen attitude. It’s from 2008 so I’m watching via Netflix).

When You Can’t Be There

Because it’s a new school year, both Ying and Luk Chaai have had emergency preparedness drills at school. Luk Chaai explained all of the components of a fire drill to me in the spirit of grand adventure. “When the bell rings, you walk, not run,” he admonished me. “You stand on the line and wait for your name to be called,” he explained. You couldn’t help but admire his enthusiasm in the face of pending doom.

Ying was late coming out of school one day. We had a drill, her teacher explained. My initial reaction was to be glad that she too was having the complete school experience. Then the potential seriousness of the situation dawned on me. What exactly did you tell her to do, I asked the teachers. For days I was nagged by ‘what ifs’ and ‘how cans.’

Should there ever be more than a drill for either child, it goes without saying that I’d want to be there. I’d also like a Marine, a fire fighter and an officer in SWAT gear standing next to me, regardless of the situation. Wouldn’t we all?

But life doesn’t work that way. My presence is not a shield. There have been bumps and bangs whether I stood two feet from a child or two cities over. Children have acted rudely before my very eyes and when my attention was elsewhere. It’s the nature of life. 

As a nation, we grapple with difficult questions of being the world’s policeman; as a parent I must acknowledge that I’m not.

We can prepare and pray and plan, and then we must release.  Otherwise we bind ourselves and our children with the silken strands of the dark unknown.

Instead I chose to believe that when help is needed, someone will be there.

It’s two o'clock Christmas morning and food poisoning strikes. Someone was there.

Shortly after we came home with Ying, we spent the day with friends. Sensing our exhaustion, they insist on pushing the stroller. Someone was there.

After a long thankless day, I phone a friend. Someone is there.

The car alarm went off and the neighbors called to check. (Some little people got a hold of their father’s keys.) Someone was there.

My child was in an orphanage and I wasn’t. Yet, someone was there.

Psychiatrists tell us that the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. I chose to believe that someone will be there when they need to be, because someone has always been there.

Someone is always there.

Along Came Then

Sometimes people like to tell me how enviable my current set-up is. I don’t disagree but after while it grates on me.

Our current circumstances aren’t the result of us winning life’s luck lottery, although there was certainly a fair amount of that involved (and an unmistakable amount of providence). But in many ways, we spent our whole lives preparing for where we are today. We just didn’t know that’s what we were doing.

Many years ago we were fresh out of college and green at marriage. My husband’s dream internship was supposed to turn into a dream job. But it didn’t, not for anyone.

Instead he took a job in retail. As it turns out, he turned that filler job into a successful career.  At the time, we were sure that job, the one we thought not worthy of his not-yet-hung college diploma, was a temporary place holder. It wasn’t, it was a stepping stone. Little did we know that he was working for a company that years later would be one of the few remaining to offer an employer adoption assistance program.  Or that we would use it, more than once.

Five years ago, if you had asked me for my five-year plan, I would have rattled it off to you. It wouldn’t have included speech therapy, a wheelchair, or petitioning Congress to change disability laws. Yet here we are.

What I didn’t know then was that my job was teaching me skills I would later use to advocate for my kids. Yet here were are.

It’s beautiful here.

That boring meeting at the thankless job you’re sitting in today, that dinner out that you’ll forgo this weekend, in favor of leftovers in, that coupon for two quarters or less off that you’re clipping when it seems pointless – it all means something.

It’s not just for the here and now, but also for the Then.

Because, when you least expect it, along comes Then.

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Have you read Jeff Goin’s new book, The In-Between: Embracing the Tension Between Now and the Next Big Thing? If you haven’t, you should. It covers this very topic.

It’s All In Your Mind: Growth vs Fixed Mindsets

The set up, the swing, the guys who have been roped into retrieving the ball

I was cooking this weekend and enlisted Ying and Luk Chaai’s help snapping the ends off of green beans. This wasn’t the kind of task Ying could complete with just one finger, so I suggested she bite the end off. After one chomp of raw green bean, she found my suggestion lacking, in, well, taste. Instead Ying asked for her scissors and snipped the ends off. Solution found; problem solved.

Again and again Ying personifies the adage if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  I’m fascinated by this relentless determination because it’s not the result of anything we’ve taught her. Additionally, this attitude seems particularly prevalent among congenital amputees. Where do Ying, Richie Parker, Kyle Maynard, Nick Vujicic, Jessica Cox (to name a few) get their resolve? I’ve been reading Mindset by Carol Dweck, and I think I have the answer. People that repeatedly and persistently work to overcome have a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. 

To define the different mindsets, Dwerk asks when do you feel smart? Is it when you don’t make a mistake, when something is easier for you than others or is it when you work on something and figure it out? People who feel smart when they’re flawless have a fixed mindset. People who feel smart when they’re learning have a growth mindset.

I will admit to falling smack dab into the first camp in many areas of my life. I feel more successful as the hare than the tortoise. I prize speed and perfection, in myself and in others. If I’m not careful, I’ll certainly convey this to my kids. And, I don’t want to. Speed and perfection are not the hallmarks of a life well-lived. As Dwerk points out, they are also the enemies of difficult learning.

Can you reform a fixed mindset and hone a growth mindset? Dwerks says yes and gives some practical, helpful examples on how. She says to offer children encouragement such as: “That homework was long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.” or “It makes me really upset when you don’t do a full job. When do you think you can complete this?”

Another suggestion from the book that we will be immediately incorporating will be to discuss a mistake we made or something we worked to overcome each day. We’re going to try doing this at dinner time. I see a huge advantage to doing it at this time of day. If my dinner is not well-received, I know what my ‘fail of the day’ can be. 

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The green beans I was making can be found here. They were delicious.

I’ll Take Tinkering For A Dollar, Alex

Luk Chaai is a taker-aparter. If something can be undone, he’ll undo it. Permission not required.

The other day I came upstairs to find that he’d hoisted his Little Tikes car up so that he could work on the undercarriage. He’d used the cord from his sister’s blinds to do it.

On the one hand, I’m proud of his ingenuity. On other, I’d prefer to that the bulk of our household items remain as they were – working and intact. I think that second part is what Spike Lee was referring to when he said “parents are the biggest dream killers.”

So when we saw a neighbor’s yard sale this weekend, we knew this was our chance. Luk Chaai, Ying and Daddy went. They came back with a DVD/CD combo thing.

Look, Dad, I did it!

Luk Chaai did not work alone.

Luk Chaai was given screwdrivers and the purchase. He was told “have at it.”

It might be the best dollar we’ve ever spent.

 

Three Tips That Border On Brilliant

 

You are my sunshine. – Ying is a pretty neat eater, surprisingly so. But when we have a tomato-related incident, I put the clothes out in the sun. The sun bleaches the stain right out, no stain remover needed. Magic!

Point and shoot - Frequently I find self portraits of Luk Chaai’s feet on my phone. While I’m typically amused, I prefer to use my phone for a more practical purpose. I take pictures of paperwork: party invitations we receive (so now I have all details beyond what I entered into Cozi), quotes I like, books I want to read, recipes, etc… It’s not as fun as a story board of feet, but it is useful.

Parlez-vous LanguagePod101? – If you’re trying to learn a new language, check out languagepod101. They offer a number of languages including Spanish, Chinese, Cantonese, Thai and Korean. A seven-day trial is free. I much prefer this to Rosetta Stone. It’s language lessons but each lesson also includes a different cultural insight. I download lessons onto my phone and then play them during school pick-up and drop-offs.

Tips shared. Duty done.

Over and out.

When Life Singles You Out

Do you ever feel like life is picking on you? I do.

I made two trips to the DMV over our new wheelchair mini-van. I had to have that brand-new bad boy smogged, taxed, and VIN verified.

Initially the DMV wasn’t going to give me handicapped plates because Ying isn’t on the car’s registration. I pointed out that’s because minors aren’t allowed to be on a vehicle’s registration. The DMV finally relented when I explained that the only reason I bought this car was for the wheelchair and signed a sworn statement acknowledging that this was Ying’s primary transportation. Two separate DMVs signed off on this and I walked out the door with the plates. (They only wanted to give me a rear-view mirror placard, which I’d have to hang each time I parked. FYI, you’ll likely need a doctor to sign off on either the placard or plates.)

Then today I got a letter from the DMV telling me to make an appointment to surrender the plates because Ying isn’t on the registration. Grrrr!

Whenever life confronts me with these aggravations, I lie. I tell myself that once I get past this hurdle that life will be smooth sailing. This isn’t true. Something new, and if possible, more inane always crops up. Why hello, adoption credit tax audit or an attempt to correct a name spelling error causing the insurance to drop said misspelled person altogether.

Life’s little tribulations are not a phase. Unlike a new pair of shoes, they do not pinch at first and then wear well. No, these blood suckers have tenure and rent-controlled housing. They are here to leech the life right out of us if we let them.

I want to be a better student of life, able to handle whatever comes at me. Fastball, I’m ready. Curve ball, I’m going to hit it out of the park. Slow pitch, come to momma.

Batter up, baby. Life’s all about the slide.

The DMV has yet to mess with this car.

Preparing Siblings For The Adoption Of A Brother Or Sister

This post could alternatively be titled Making Way For An Interloper, but let’s focus on the positive, shall we?

There’s no recipe for adding another person to the family. You’re adding a living, breathing, potentially kicking person into the mix. This means a time of transition for everyone. Here are a few suggestions to help ready siblings on what’s to come:

Make a book – I made Luk Chaai this book that talks about handling change and ways he could deal with everything that was happening. Even though he isn't a 50-something-year-old woman, for him, this was The Change. And, let’s face it, even if he got nothing from the book, it made me feel like I was doing something.

Give a gift – My brother is six years younger than I am. When he was born, he paid me the proper respect an elder sister deserves and he brought me a gift. I still have it.  The day we met Ying, Luk Chaai gave her a doll; she brought him Legos. Did it help pave the way? I don’t know, but hopefully they’ll still have their gifts well into adulthood too.

Talk about emotions – We did a lot of talking with Luk Chaai about his own adoption. We talked about things like: remember how you cried when you met us? You sister may be scared and she may cry too. We tried to emphasize that his ready-made friend may not always feel very friendly.

Pick a travel spot – Luk Chaai was excited about a return trip to the land of birth. There were many reasons to be excited. He was going to meet his long-awaited, much-talked about sister; he would be visiting his foster mother; and he was staying in a hotel with a pool AND a breakfast buffet. Can you say win-win?

To help make sure that he maintained that level of enthusiasm, we asked him to pick a travel destination. He picked “a train.” Luckily we were able to find one, and it turned out to be memorable, if hot, day for everyone.

Countdown with a paper chain – As we got ready for “airplane day,” each night we tore a link off of a paper chain. It was a good visual for all of us as we counted down.
There were a few more miscellaneous things that we did in preparation of travel. We’ve always traveled with Luk Chaai’s pillow case, so we packed that. I also really wanted to emphasize to Luk Chaai that he was coming home with us. He didn’t seem to show any concerns that he might have one-way ticket, but given his age and the fact that he was being reunited with his foster mother, I really felt the need to drive home to him that we were all coming home . 

In an effort to do that, before we left the house, we said good bye to his bed and room, saying ‘see you in a few weeks, see you soon.’ I also made a calendar for him that showed our daily activities and when we would be coming home.

Our transition wasn’t smooth. There were days with jagged edges and raw feelings. But there were also days when a little girl sought out her brother’s hand. Days when a big brother bounced and banged around, impatient for his sister to wake from her nap. Glory graced those days.
May it grace yours too.

Hungry, Hungry Kiddos: School Lunch Box Ideas

Luk Chaai’s idea of a truly decent meal.

 

My kids are good eaters, embarrassingly so. At the court hearing for Luk Chaai’s adoption, the deputy commented on how “sturdy” he was. Last weekend at a party, Ying ate four bowls of chow fun prompting comments of, “Geesh! Don’t you ever feed this child?” I can assure you that the people who get a kick out of watching our kids eat are the people who don’t foot the grocery bill! Some people worry about a run on the banks, we worry about a run on the Asian food market.

Here are a few lunch box ideas for hearty and picky eaters alike:

- egg salad with sun dried tomatoes (a favorite of mine)
- seaweed
- edamame
- banana chips
- Persian cucumbers and hummus
- pasta salad
- gyoza
- quesadillas
- mangos and strawberries
- pepperoni and cubed cheese
- ham and pineapple chunks
- bagels with cream cheese
- pita chips with white bean spread (white beans in the food processor with EVOO, salt, pepper, garlic)
- apples and peanut butter
- Craisins with pretzels

How To Effectively Advocate For Your Special Needs Child

If you have a differently abled child, you will undoubtedly spend a large portion of your days making sure that child gets what she needs. It will be exhausting and seem never-ending. It will feel messy, because it is.

You will run out your cell phone minutes, and your patience, dealing with the insurance company. You will encounter doctors who say things so dumb that you question their medical degrees. A government “official” at the US Embassy where you are trying to get your child’s visa paperwork may question your ability to parent your child.

Do not give up.

Here are a few suggestions for dealing with these trying moments:

Wait before you draw battle lines – Your child’s situation, like him, is unique. You may be dealing with people who are unfamiliar with your child’s diagnosis, treatment, etc… Some people are lazy and uncaring and won’t want to help you because it means more work for them. But other people are simply uneducated or uninformed and therefore will default to a “no” or “we can’t do that” position. These people can, and will help you, you just need to give them the information they need to do it.

You are an expert on your child because you live with him, watch him function daily, watch him overcome and adapt. The stranger on the other end of the line doesn’t. Find a point of reference to explain your situation. For us, it’s almost always encouraging people to Google Nick Vuijcic or watch his Youtube videos. Even though Nick and Ying don’t have the exact physical limitations, we find it’s a great starting point. 

Think bulls eye, not buck shot – You aren’t going for a scattered approach here, you’re aiming for dead center and you want to hit the target every time. You believe your child needs 5 classroom adaptive devices? Make a list and prioritize the needs. When they ask about them at the IEP meeting, start with need #1, explain why it’s needed, where to get it and how much the item will cost.

Learn the lingo -  If the issue with the insurance company is the seat elevation system on your daughter’s wheelchair (and I can assure you, it will be!) and you’re slugging it out with them over said seat elevation system, speak their language.  Know that the assigned billing code for the seat elevation system is E2300. Insurance companies bill and are billed using a standard set of alpha-numeric codes called the Healthcare Procedure Coding Systems Code or HPCSC. You can find the applicable codes on your insurance company’s website, in your policy, or here.   A few more insurance terms to know: EOB (explanation of benefits) and OOP (out-of-pocket).

Look like you mean business -  If you mean business, then look like it. There’s no need to go to an IEP meeting in a 3-piece suit, but know that everyone in the room will, at a minimum, be in business casual. Therefore, you, at a minimum, should be too.

Take it to the top – Sometimes the people helping you simply don’t have the power or knowledge base to get you what you need. In that case, the magic words are, “may I speak to a supervisor, please.” Still not getting what you want? Google the email or telephone numbers for a consumer advocate or the CEO of the company. 

Phone a friend -  It’s hard to stay unemotional and factual when talking about your child. You don’t want to recite that her arm is only 2.5 inches long, you want to say things like, she has deep soulful eyes and blast you, you’re making those beautiful eyes cry.

While your passion for your child propels you, it also can work against you in certain situations. If you find it difficult to articulate your position without getting extremely emotional or that your objectivity is skewed by your zeal, then step back. (Remember the most skilled advocates can see both sides of a situation, thus allowing them to more forcefully argue their position.)

In insurance appeals and IEP meetings, you have the right to appoint someone else to speak on your behalf. If you need to, do this.

You’ll be amazed at the number of doctors, therapists and friends who are willing to get down in the trenches with you. People are willing to get their hands dirty and their hearts bruised if you let them.

You do not walk this road alone.

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Did you hear about the British Airways passenger who bought tweets to recover his father’s lost luggage? Apparently it worked. You can read about it here.

A Limited Return to Domesticity

On a wholly unrelated note, I found this in the toy chest at my parents house. A few years ago, I would have said, ‘what happened to her hand?’ Now we just call her limb different Barbie and move on.

About seven or eight years ago, I was having dinner with my Nana and her old lady friends. All of the women were at least in their eighties, a few in their nineties. The women started peppering me with questions. "Do you sew?" one of them asked. "No, ma 'am," I replied. "Bake your own bread?" another one inquired. Again, I shook my head. I think the ladies were starting to feel sorry for me, so one of them pitched me a softball, "How many children do you have?" At the time, we didn't have any, so I was forced to admit that to these ladies. "I work," I weakly eeked out. I don't think they were impressed.

This was a generation of women who had sewn many of their, and much of their children's, clothes and canned their own tomatoes. Contrary to what one might expect, most of these women at some point also held down jobs outside the home. They talked back and forth amongst themselves for a few minutes, reminiscing about baking and sewing, what they enjoyed, what they didn't. "I always did like creating something with my hands," one of the women commented before the conversation moved on.

I nodded along obligingly, secretly glad that I wasn't born to that era. I have always enjoyed cooking, but most days, I left early and got home late. The making of dinner wasn't for the enjoyment of the process but for the eating of the results. There was no need to darn socks or "put up" preserves, that's why the good Lord gave us Amazon and Trader Joes.

This summer our garden produced an abundance of zucchini and cucumbers, and we passed them out routinely. We literally handed them over the fence to the neighbors and loaded them in the car to give away while at church and school (all with my non-zuchinni loving husband shouting good riddance).

I got a strange sense of satisfaction from sharing something I'd grown with my own hands. Somehow it felt different than delivering casseroles or even our Yuletide gifts of homemade pot stickers. I think I finally know what my grandmothers' friends were talking about - they were talking about being more than a consumer.

I'm not about to end my relationship with the UPS man. We have a good thing going. He delivers directly to my door, tells me about the best Christmas lights in town and delights my kids by honking when he sees us out walking. But I am going to give a lot more thought to creating with my own hands. One-click purchasing with the mouse isn’t really the only skill I want to pass down.

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Want an easy create with your own hands project? These were both quite good.

10 minute homemade pickles

Homemade peach jam

Plus Ashley Ann talks about this same topic here.