Smashing Pumpkins and Let’s Hear It For The Boy

Luk Chaai is a boy’s boy. He wiggles and squirms and worms. He’s loveable and loud. In spite of our best efforts, numerous times a day he’s asked to be still, stand still, or sit still.

I don’t want that to be our legacy for him, that we tried to change who he is. But some days … dude.

So when we find something that celebrates who he is and what he likes to do, well, we’re on it.

Our pumpkin was already ooey and gooey by this weekend, so we let Luk Chaai climb a ladder and plop Mr. Jack-o-lantern on down. He thought it was great. The pumpkin turned into water balloons and a two wet, messy kids, but nonetheless it was fun.

Here are a few more ideas for a guy or gal who needs to just be:

• lego balloon car
• baby powder ghost bombs
• just about anything from this site

National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month. That means there will be a lot of adoption “speak” buzzing about. It will be common to hear things like: orphans, being called to adopt, Gotcha Day and the least of these.

We don’t use a lot of adoption “talk” at our house. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the lingo I mentioned above. But I think it can be overused, misused, and in our personal circumstances, not completely honoring of my children or their circumstances.

That being said, adoption does get talked about a lot in our house.

We talk about the children who wait, about our children’s lives before they came home to us. We pray for foster mothers, for nannies at the orphanage and for their birth families.

It’s a topic I hope that I’m completely comfortable with, that my children are completely comfortable with.

But I get that not everyone is comfortable talking about adoption or even asking questions about adoption. So I’m going to do it for you, ask the questions and give the answers. 

Let’s get started.

1. How long did you wait for your children? We waited 29 months for Luk Chaai - from the day we mailed our application until the day we met him. Ying was a waiting child, so the wait was a little different. We waited 18 months - from the date of application until the day we met her.

2. Do you receive any kind of state or federal assistance? No. That being said, Ying does get therapy through a state-funded agency. She started getting PT through our private insurance, but we subsequently switched. Private physical therapy was expensive and very limited. The insurance company only approved roughly 18 sessions initially. As you can imagine, we needed a lot more than 18 sessions! Ying was eligible for therapy through the state because of her adoption and the extent of her needs.

All the DME (wheelchair, ramp, etc…) has been purchased through our private insurance. We independently purchased the wheelchair-equipped van.

3. How long will Ying receive physical and occupational therapy? As long as she needs it. Initially, she was getting PT and OT, each, twice a week, for half an hour each. She is now receiving OT 1x a week and PT 2x a week.

4. Is adoption expensive? Yes. There are many, many articles and posts that deal with paying for adoption, grants, etc… For us, we found most helpful sites like: moneysavingmom.com and chieffamilyofficer.com.

5. What birth parent information did you receive? All the information that was provided to the agency was passed on to us. We are grateful for every shard of it. As is common in international adoption, the medical information was limited.

Here’s a related post on children of our own. 

Do you have more adoption-related questions? Stefanie from Ni Hao Ya’ll is also answering questions here (which inspired this post).

Read This, Eat This, Play This

Nothing says fall like these Pumpkin Oatmeal Scotchies. Buy 2 bags of butterscotch chips. You’ll need them. This is a recipe you’ll make again and again. This recipe for Pumpkin Pie Dip has also been a winner. And it’s slightly healthier because apples dip nicely in it. Although graham crackers do too. Lastly, we love mini bananas. They’re perfect for snacks and school lunches.

I’m only partway through The Whole-Brain Child by Siegel and Bryson, but I wish I’d read it sooner. One really good take away is to explain to children that emotions are like clouds. They aren’t permanent. They roll by.

Luk Chaai’s teacher recently asked me about our snake. Our snake? The closest we have to a snake is a now-deceased caterpillar that got taken to Share Day in a pickle jar. So when I can across the suggestion to play 2 truths and 1 make believe with yours kids in The Whole-Brain Child, I knew this was a game for us. It’s actually been a lot of fun. We pared it down to one truth and one make believe though to make it slightly easier.

Here’s an example of how I played it with Luk Chaai: I once had a banana cut out of my mouth with a samurai sword or I’ve eaten alligator. (Just ask my summer camp roomie who volunteered me for an “activity”, which one is true.)

Happy eating. Happy reading.

The Wheelchair Minivan, Part III

So the wheelchair is now a full-time addition to our family. We even had family pictures taken with it recently. Ying loves her wheelchair, loves it.

Who could blame her? It gives her a freedom she’s never previously had. She can go up, down and around all by herself. And, trust me, she does! Watching her zoom over to the light switch and turn it on and off has been a beautiful thing.

While having the wheelchair has been a huge positive change for Ying, it’s also meant a few changes for the rest of us. There was a bit of furniture rearranging inside the house as well as the ramp and a wider door. But the bigger change has obviously been the car.

As much as I never wanted to be a minivan mom, I’m so grateful for this car. Ying drives her wheelchair straight up the ramp and into the car. We had the Permolock C3 installed, so she can ride in the wheelchair, instead of a car seat. (She hasn’t done this yet though, because I’m waiting for the safety vest we ordered to arrive.)

The Permolock is manufactured by Permobil and can only be installed on Permobil chairs. There is a second option, however, and that’s the EZ Lock.

 

Permolock C3

The Permolock is a 2-pin locking system. (EZ Lock is a one-pin system.) That means that if both pins aren’t lined up with the locking base properly, the chair won’t lock. We put taped guides down on the floor to help Ying learn to properly get onto the base. There is a light on the release button that lets you know if you’re properly locked in. Green means you’re good, red means you aren’t. We had our locking mojo pretty well down at first but seem to have lost it. I contacted Permobil and they think that we may need our base shimmed up, so I’m going to be visiting the dealership again soon.

A few more tips:

- You can’t have the Permolock installed into your vehicle until you have your wheelchair because the installer needs both the wheelchair and the locking base to line everything up properly.

- The locking pins for the Permobil K450 are not retractable. But that hasn’t been a problem. We haven’t scratched my hardwood floors or gotten caught in the grass outside.

- If you have an automatic ramp, your keys get bulkier. You’ll have a separate ramp remote from car remote. Hello bulky pockets!

- All the major vehicle manufacturers offer rebates for mobility adaptation/wheelchair conversions. The rebates range from $1000-$1500. Toyota wanted to see a doctor’s note/RX regarding the disability, but luckily I still had the note the DMV required and photocopied that. Go here for a full list of rebates and mobility programs.

- We’ve had to develop a new routine. Getting two preschoolers (and their school bags, water bottles, etc…) and a wheelchair backed out of the car safely and efficiently takes a little getting used too. But like everything, this has simply been about practice. Because we take the wheelchair everywhere, we’ve gotten a lot of practice in a short amount of time.

I can’t sing the praises of this chair enough. It really has been life changing. And, everyone loves the hot, hot pink.

Go little girl in the hot pink chair!

Why Christmas Was Never Meant To Be A Celebration

  Mount St. Helen, 2008

The air is crisp, the leaves are crunchy. That can only mean one thing – Costco has begun selling Christmas wrap. Cue the collective groan.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my share of griping about the rushing of the seasons and the fact that a silent night can be blown-up and put in your front lawn for $99 and a handful of cents.

But for those of us who believe Christmas to be the holiest season, we have only ourselves to blame that it has been made tawdry with tinsel and tacky singing lights.

We try to get back to the true meaning of Christmas by eliminating St. Nicklaus or by limiting gifts to the number of magi. Yet we barely have joy for the world for a day, much less a whole month.

How is it we send cards proclaiming the hope of the world yet stand in the post office line to mail them feeling hollow and haggard?

Christmas was never meant to be celebrated. That’s not what the wise men, the shepherd boy or the weary mother did. They bowed down. They worshiped.

There, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the-almost-assuredly-not sweet smelling hay, illuminated by the eastern star was an Extinguishing Light.

You visit a tear-stained mother in the NICU, her tiny child in an incubator fed the breath of life by tubes and wires; the outcome etched on the doctor’s face. You don’t take candles and a cake.

Yet we dress up Christmas like this year the story may have a different ending. Like we can glitz away, just for a day, Gethsemane or a tomb.

I don’t want to forgo the carols, the lights or the presents under the tree. It was the magic of my childhood, and I want it to be my children’s too.

But I also want to celebrate Christmas like I know the ending. This season, I want to admit that sorrow was born because of, and for, me.

Stay tuned for more. I don’t actually know what the more is, just that it’s coming.

The Power of Yes

I’ve talked about it before. About how one little ‘yes’ changed our lives in a great big and beautiful way. But sometimes I neglect to add that the ‘yes’ continues to change our lives. That the ‘yes’ was a snowball, not a snowstorm.

The funny thing is that while that initial ‘yes’ felt so big and so scary, everything since has felt pretty much  felt like a natural extension of our lives. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still afraid of change. Sometimes really afraid. And, sometimes we still shrink back when we should be forging ahead. But we’ve also learned that courage is not the absence of fear.

We’ve also learned that 'saying ‘yes’ should never be an insolated incident, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Instead, it should be a way of life.

She’s says it far more beautifully here. Don’t miss it, especially where she says “This should not be a unique story. Our story should not be special. This story should be all of ours.”

When It Comes Undone

Whenever changes are afloat, I start out sailing smoothly. But after days of uneven waters, I tend to lose it.

I make headway on the To Do list. I call and email all the needed people it takes to get things done. But then a moment comes. It’s that moment when I’m stirfrying but I can’t find my stirfry spoon or it’s when someone, who has been asked not to screech repeatedly, screeches a little too loud and too long. In that moment, I come undone.

In that moment I forget that the issue is a cooking utensil or a kid being a (crazy) kid. Instead I hear “Really, you think you can do that? You can’t even do this.” or “You don’t get to whine and complain. You’re the one who thought you could have it all.”

The self doubt, the emotional exhaustion, the patience of a gnat – it doesn’t come from someplace good.

We tell ourselves and our kids to always give 110%. Malarkey. If we’re going to embrace this life and not endure it, then sometimes you just can’t. Some days you need to do enough to just get by. Some days you need to pack it in long before quitting time.

You need to build your strength back up. You need to be able to get back to a place where you can feel the rush of the water between your fingers, even when you’re just doing dishes. You need to be able to feel the warmth of the sun on your cheek and to know that it shone for you.

You need to get back to the place where you can put it back together when it comes undone.