Peace

Things have been remarkably peaceful eventhough we are just as busy as can be. Soccer has just ended for the year but her challenge soccer tryouts are soon. Tennis lessons just started for a few weeks and we switched to a new stable for riding that is more involved. Swim team has started practice and we have a mock meet in about 9 days. She has been so kind to the other younger kids she knows who are in their first year of swim team.

The End of Grade tests were earlier this week and we got word today that she passed the reading part on or above grade level, which is really great news. We still are going to let her repeat this year but she is ok with that too. It really is for the best.

She’s learning how saying ‘thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ in normal tones works so much better than snarling it. It has taken us so long to get that through to her. She is content being silly more. She still gets in trouble and melts down but far more often she just apologizes and makes it right. Such a nice change!

Some of the spring clothes I got her are coming up short on her now. So I’m getting some size 10s too and now size 1.5 for her shoes for tennis. I’ve got to get her started on cigarettes and coffee soon. This growth thing doesn’t seem to be stopping on its own!

Oh yeah, I had my stylist highlight some of my hair blonde AND…bright pink! It looks awesome and I really am tickled by it. Hayley wants her hair short with some pink too now.

It is quiet here now. Jeff took her to the club for tennis and then she is going home with her friends from there. They’ll bring her home late night and we might just get to watch a R movie until then. Then we have swim team in the morning, a kids party at the pool, a fishing derby at the pond next to the pool after and a BBQ that night - I think by then we’ll just some home and cook out. Sunday we are going over to our friend’s Mark and Andrea’s house for a cookout for Memorial Day and because Mark defended his Phd thesis on yesterday in some brilliant part of chemistry. I’m happy for him but it also means they’ll probably be moving soon.

Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day weekend!

Love Thursday: Elmo

I am so behind on photos for my website… like 1000 to edit and post!!! Ahhh thank goodness work slows down soon and I can get caught up.

Here is Hayles riding Elmo (the big version of this is a stunningly nice photo, I cropped this one way tighter)

A poet and you didn’t even know it…

I mentioned before that Jeff’s dad wrote Hayley a great poem that I just adored. Hayley wrote him a cute one back about having a silly grandpa.

Well on the last visit from the grandparents, Hayley and Grandpa John decided to have a poetry exchange. Their first topic is the family pets and John’s poem on their pets arrived this week. She loves to read them and unlike most time when asked to write, she was thrilled to put the pen to paper (or in the digital sense, the cursor to the screen).

Just another great way to get her reading and writing - not to mention developing a special relationship with Grandpa John. And my dad Gordon (I have two dads/one mom) is getting in on the granddad action too in taking her to the neighborhood fishing tournament next weekend. Hayley needs all the good, kind and present men in her life.

Rock on

I love music. Finding a piece that either reflects my mood or cranks it up is essential to my day. It can be anything from Vivaldi to Dave Brubeck to my beloved 70s rock music. And concerts are just too much fun to me. Jeff doesn’t really like them much but he did drive to NJ for me to see Joni Mitchell live, which was one of the biggest musical events of my life.

I got off to a good start with concerts:

My first concert - the Police on the Synchronicity Tour.
My second - Prince on the Purple Rain Tour.

Two awesome legendary tours. So when it comes to Hayley, I’ve tried to impart my love of tunage to her. She already loves to sing and dance. She took drum lessons for awhile but mostly enjoys just banging on them for fun. So of course, I’m going to drag her with me to shows. I love sitting out on the grass, chilling listening to tunes.

In other words, I’m the bad mom to lets their kid go to rock concerts with her. Her first was Steely Day and Michael McDonald - low key. I”m a Dan fanatic, that was my fourth show. But I took a BIG risk last night and took her to Gwen Stefani with Akon and Lady Sovereign - gulp, on a school night even!! {bad mother, bad mother}

We had a blast! We sat in a great section with families and jammed out to all the tunes. ‘Bananas’ was what Hayley was dying to hear and she was on her feet screaming the entire time it was on. We yodeled with her, sung, swayed our arms and just had so much fun laughing and snuggling on the grass.

I don’t really care that we got home last and she missed a few hours of sleep if we can make awesomely fun memories like that!

Mother’s Day

sleeping late - CHECK
breakfast in bed - CHECK
dozen roses in deep pink - CHECK
godiva chocolates - CHECK
adorable artwork by your kid - CHECK
lovely cards from your family - CHECK
japanese take out for dinner - CHECK
pool with Jeff and Hayley - CHECK

All and all, a wonderful day in my book. Every Mother’s Day I am just stunned by my blessings. How did a quirky chubby girl end up with a wonderful husband, an adorable child, a dream job to work from home tinkering with sports websites and a lovely house. I am eternally grateful for all of the amazing things that happening in my life.

We are off to the pool now!

Stargazing …

Jeff is out with Hayley at a soccer clinic. She has challenge level soccer tryouts in a few weeks and this has been a very frustrating season with her team. Love all the parents, we’ve been together five seasons but the time has come to all go our own ways.

She started with this team about three months after she moved in with us for good. Outside of school, it was our first foray into organized suburban life with a child.

I remember finally being able to tell the other parents we had just adopted her - or not even adopted, but that she was just placed with us. I thought they would think I was a fake parent. Instead when I confessed as the season ended, the ones I told looked at me with astonishment, all asking how we were so close already, when, how, what, etc? But all very positive and kind - and most of all, accepting.

Tomorrow morning is our last game. I wish I could thank so many of these women for welcoming me into motherhood without every knowing it. I know several of them are actually sad tonight as well to let go of these kids and the other parents. How rare to find that many kid’s with parents that aren’t jerks? We could always get someone to help with carpools, we had sleepovers and playdates, I’ve held, tickled and laughed with the kids siblings. And all along watched them grow up so much.

First day of first practice:

First game:

First team photo …

After last week’s game …

Why?

Someone asked me why recently that we went the foster care route and then adoption if we had the money to adopt internationally or domestically.

If you are adopting, which path you take really is a personal decision. It is a feeling, a vibe that you get that you are working with the right people and have the capabilities to take on the challenges faced.

For us, we both knew that we couldn’t take the failed adoption cycles that domestic newborn adoption might offer. I know lots of people who can ride that out and make it but for us, it was too scary. And at times with the wrong agencies, too ethically questionable.

Going through foster care licensing was really amazing and a great education about adoption, parenting, bonding and issues children face. It was scary but it was worth it.

Let’s get real people, there is no child who is adopted who comes through it with out any issues. They could be minor issues about identify or major issues about their past. But children orphaned overseas and children coming through foster care ALL face issues to be worked on - it just depends which issues you feel like you can work on. Some people take both routes.

A child in need in a child in need no matter where they live.

Love Thursday: Before school

Adoption books

mamagigi at musings:mamahood&more has an awesome list of adoption books to check out.

Read it at April showers bring May’s … book winner!

Around the corner

I can’t remember which of the adoption books I read that mentioned praising adopted children surreptitiously. The idea was you could have a big impact if you praised the child when they thought you didn’t know they were eavesdropping.

Hayley was coming back to the table at dinner last night and for some reason, I was looking the other way but caught her out of the corner of my eye. I decided to try that method and immediately she ducked around the corner, hiding and listening to me. Of course, I gushed about her choral recital that night and how she was growing up into a smart and wonderful girl.

I was lucky Jeff played along since he didn’t see her - he told me later that he was a bit baffled why I started lauding her out of the blue, especially since she had very trying just that afternoon.

Eventually she came around the corner and “busted us” as she thought. But I could see she was beaming with pride.

I don’t think this applies to just adopted children - or even children. Don’t we all love to find out people are saying nice things behind our back? The phrase ‘behind our back’ even seems to mean a negative thing only now. Maybe it is a lesson for us all to learn about how people thrive on prasie, direct or not.