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.