Michigan is having a cool streak just for us! Mother Nature loves us, apparently. Its sooooo nice. I just want to wake up, rush outside and sit there all day enjoying the cool breeze. It is going to be realllly hard going back to the 105 degree days after this! And the grass is lush and green and soft so I just want to roll around in it like a child. Addy & Noah are having so much fun running barefoot in the grass without worrying about dog poop fire ants. Oh and about the squirrels? Of course we have squirrels in texas. but we don’t have midwestern huge-ass brown squirrels. In Texas our squirrels are TINY things and just totally different.

So let’s get down to business and stop the weather blahblah.

Today was the big day of local business I eluded to in an earlier post. Tina guessed it right in the comments….the business was that Addy got her ears pierced!!! She has been asking for a year now, consistently. We agreed we would do it for her 2nd birthday and I started really researching it and knew there was no way I was going to take her to someone who had zero training in piercing (ie Claire’s or even our doctor) and that I was also not willing to have her ears done with a piercing gun. I really only wanted it done with a certified professional piercer. Problem was, not one single piercer in our area in Texas would do the job. So her 2nd birthday came and went and I back-burnered the piercing since there were no options left that I was ok with.

Then when our trip to Michigan panned out, I contacted a friend of mine with the piercing hook-up and she was all “Let me take care of all the details. I’ll book the appointment, have them set aside the earrings in two sizes, I’ll bring suckers and distracting toys and my kids for moral support and inspiration, I’ll bring my camera and take pics and video. You just show up.” How could I say no? It is only because she had the hook-up with this local place that Addy was able to have it done. This place is also where both Tony, Thanh and I all got our first tattoos so its a place I definitely know and trust.

So we went. Addy was still consistently sure she wanted it done and understood the pain issue. And I knew it was basically now or never. It went really well. It hurt. It was fast. Her ears look totally awesome and I am so so SO glad I stuck with my guns and did the needle over the gun. Addy absolutely freakin’ LOVES her new earrings and is so so so proud of them. She thanked the piercer (which, he claims, is a first for the child crowd! haha) and in the car outside the piercing place she looked at her ears her rear mirror and said “I love my earrings, Dada!” as he buckled her in. She has randomly said a dozen or more times to anyone who will listen “Look at my earrings!” and she insists on looking at them in the mirror over and over and over. I seriously have no regrets which is a big deal because I was pretty sure I might! I never ever thought I’d pierce my child’s ears at the age of 2 and was very very nervous and anxious about it. But I am positive I did the right thing.

{this is her contemplative-but-goofy look - an Addy Classic}

There is more to the story, really. For the first year Addison was home we went back and forth on the issue of removing her ear tags (the pronounced nodules of skin on her tragus of both ears) surgically. We felt a lot of pressure by Vietnam culture and some people here in the states too to have them removed in order to make her “beautiful”. I am sorry to say I let some of that get to me for awhile. I’m so glad we had several months before we really had to seriously consider the issue (before her ENT considered the risks of anesthesia to be low enough to warrant both reconstructive surgeries she would require). Meanwhile over that year a few people spoke to me about experiences of friends and family - adults now - who grew up with ear tags and opted to keep them and not have them removed and that planted a seed for me. When we moved to texas, we sat down with our awesome doctor and asked her for her opinion and she presented us with a lot of very sound psychological reasons why she considered it to be EXTREMELY important that we NOT do the surgery until Addison was old enough to ask for it and consent. It sealed the deal for Tony and I and surgery was no longer a consideration. Instead of viewing her ear tags as an unfortunate birth defect we started to view them as a beautiful extension of herself. most people say they would never have noticed them if they didn’t know about them and we are so happy with our decision to keep them.

{addy and her girlie, J~, sharing the girlfriend love and support}

When she started asking for earrings, we had still not made a decision about the surgeries and I considered having the earrings done during surgery - kill two birds with one stone. But when we decided not to do the surgery I had to reconsider the options. Some people had suggested that we would not want to peirce her ears becuase it would draw attention to the tags, that we should in fact grow out her hair to cover her ears, not pull it into a pony tail, etc. But we had made the choice to embrace every inch of her as perfect  and the ear piercing seemed to be an awesome and symbolic way to celebrate her beauty and the beauty of her ears, just as they are. I’m so lucky that I have such a great friend who really set the piercing up for me and I am especially lucky that she just knew instinctively what it symbolized for me as well as how excited Addy was. Thank you Jackie!

Anyway, to be brief, afterward we went to lunch with our two families (our huge huge families - 11 of us total and that was when we didn’t have Dalton & Teegan yet!!) which was soooo fun. Man I love being around mamas that I just really relate to and connect with and who have such great kids!!! I’m so lucky!

Then we came home, had naps, my Mom grilled for all of us and also my brother and his girlfriend who I hadn’t seen since we moved to texas. It was great to see them all again. My brother is like a very very tall 35 year old who acts like he’s perpetually 8 and my kids adore him like no other. so they were so happy to wrestle and chase and act crazy. Addy didn’t really know him and now adores him, too. He spent quite a bit of time teaching her how to punch like a man. Makes a mama proud! ha.

So that was today! Long but wonderful day. I have to say, so far? This vacation has NOT disappointed at all.

The Good: Sooooo much good….

• After almost quitting due to frustration in gymnastics, Teegan opted to stick it out. Now his coach is moving him up to the next class. I’m so proud of him for sticking with something that was frustrating him, working it out and experiencing the reward of his commitment and hard work. I know he’s very happy with himself, too.  We totally celebrated with ice cream, of course!
• Yesterday UPS pulled up to my curb and delivered me one shiny new much-coveted 50mm prime lens. I am ridiculously happy. I suck at the manual focus but the quality of my pictures is so much better that I don’t even care. I’m starting to post them over on the photoblog
• There may be a job offer in our near future. Like maybe tomorrow.
• This weekend starts what I am dubbing my Triangle Tour (the reasons for this will be forthcoming and relate to geography)….a one month long venture to see and hang and party (with cheerios and sippee cups, of course) with some of my very very best and most beloved friends and their most adorable families. I was going to call them bloggy friends or adoption friends but truth be told, they are just my friends, even if we happened to meet on a blog and we all adopted. I can barely sleep I am so excited. I am SO excited that I am delusional and in total denial about the combined total of 60 hours plus stops (so another 60 hours! LOL) we will drive to make this happen.  To make things even better, I’ll get to see my entire family along the way, too.  You will just have to stay tuned to see who it is I get the extreme privilege of meeting, I’m not name-dropping yet!
• I finally, finally finished putting together the list of curriculum and resources each of my children will use for the 2008-2009 school year.  I have a child started first grade (aka the Big Leagues), a child starting a virtual academy AND middle school, both and a child starting highschool. This was not easy. I have never EVER put so much time and energy into planning for a school year. WHEW! I am so glad it is done.
• Circus this weekend! Clowns (sorry Melissa!!!) and Highwires. I LOVE the circus!!!!!!

The Bad:

• I watched the HBO documentary China’s Stolen Children the night before arrests were made in Vietnam of those accused of corruption related to international adoption including hundreds of children that went to US families.  It’s pretty clear that crimes against infants and children are pervasive internationally and we in the US drive those crimes through demand by way of adoption.  Each of us that adopts should understand these issues and be prepared to offer an explanation to our children if and when they look for answers. But we aren’t the only ones to blame  - government systems that are failing their most innocent and needy are at the root of the problem and greedy agencies who see adoption as a cash cow industry are right behind them.
• Today Addy got a buddha tattoo. She still loves Buddha so much, except now she is pretty sure his belly is SO big because he needs to poop. hmm. I digress. The face fell off of Buddha (the tattoo) and how tragic is that? Ok, not quite on par with child trafficking. I’m reaching here, I know.

The Ugly:

• The other day, at the grocer, someone approached Addison and patted her arm and said “I have two of these at home”.  Seriously, could you get any more ugly? By these did she mean cute dresses? Or babies? Or daughters? Or Asian adoptees? I think I can guess. And the possessive term “have two of these” as if they are collectibles she owns makes me ill. I am so embarrassed for her and her children. Do people not even think before they speak?
• My house. It is a mess and I need to get it clean so our house sitter doesn’t want to puke and run for the hills. I’m rather ok with the mess - we live here 24/7 so clean is impossible - but when it comes to getting it ready for someone else I sort of envision it being hotel-spotless. Which equals stress to the nth degree. I need to have this done in the next few days. Ugh.

Yesterday Addy turned 26 months old. She is totally cracking us up lately and I wanted to get some of her silliness down before she moves on and I forget it. Her vocabulary has, yet again, really taken a leap. She’s talking in complex sentences and she pulls whole phrases out of thin air that she’s heard in the past and uses them right on cue. Even her brothers have noticed her crazy talking streak. I think some of her speech is getting clearer and easier to understand. She still mispronounced a lot of blends though so occasionally we are left scratching our chins at what she said but that’s rare now, at least for us.

She has started singing in her crib when she wakes up from a nap or in the morning. It is the sweetest thing EVER. We’ve made a really big deal out of it so now she’s very conscious about her singing so we’ll get a big response. And that reminds me, she is almost always waking up happy now! She used to be a rough waker, like me, but now she wakes up in a great mood ready to run off and play.

Usually Tony gets Addy up from her naps and in the morning. When I do it, its always a big surprise. Today was one such day and Addy cheered, thinking it was Daddy and then said “Hmm. I don’t THINK so!”

Another thing she loves to do right now is talk about her feelings. “I’m so happy!” or “I’m so sad” and she can fluctuate between the two in a heartbeat. “I’m so sad” is frequently accompanied by total body collapse into a sweet heap of baby sadness. For effect. Because when she is REALLY sad she doesn’t actually tell us. Its so sweet when she prances around the room singing “I’m so HAPPY, mama! I’m so HAPPY!” over such simple things. Another thing she says is “I’m so silly!” - that always cracks us up. Occasionally she’ll say “I’m a big girl!” or “I’m so cute!”. And she really REALLY likes to talk about how “cool” things are.

Today we went to see Wall.E and it was really great! Addy had been looking forward to it and she did really well. She watched almost all of it. At one point there was a scary part, to her, and she buried her face in me. When the crisis was averted she said, right on cue, “That was a close one!”

Also during the movie, Tony bought some Reese’s Pieces to share and whenever he would hand a few to Addy she said “What do you have for me, Dada? What do you have?”. Every single time. Even though the answer never changed.

Also she loved the pixar Short at the beginning of the movie today and cracked up through the whole thing occasionally throwing in a “That’s funny, Mama! That’s funny Dada!”. Whenever she hears people laugh she always tries to join in and fake-laugh and talk about how funny it is.

Addy is having so much fun swimming this summer. She is getting really fast in the water and can cruise across our pool in the blink of an eye. We don’t even have to be in the pool next to her anymore. We can sit in the hot tub while she plays around in the pool. It is BLISS! This past week she fell in love with a water slide at a local pool and went down that thing about 100 times. It was such fun! She also likes to stick her toes up out of the water so we can come tickle them which for some reason cracks me up every time.

She has a love-hate relationship with our pets. She frequently screams at the dog when she’s passed out asleep and not even remotely a threat to steal her food. She also loves Mrs. Amy Beasley (our hedgehog, don’t you remember?). She isn’t at all afraid of her or afraid to touch her despite the very sharp quills. And she’s very gentle with her. But she absolutely loves my cat, Anna. One time she told her “I love your tail, Anna!” Recently I realized she can tell my two big cats apart even though often WE can’t. Sometimes she will walk up to one and say “Oh you’re not Anna, you’re Smokey!”. I’d love to know what traits she uses to tell them apart. But her most bizarre relationship is with Teegan’s cat, Sticky Bubblegum. Addy calls him “Sticky Gummy” and she totally taunts that cat and that cat will slice right through her soft baby skin. Over and over Addison will be gentle, pet nice, leave Sticky alone and then out of nowhere she’ll do something to provoke that cat and he’ll stab her with his razor claws. And she does.not.learn. Actually I am sure she’s learned a long time ago but she’s decided at some point that its worth the pain to provoke that cat. And then there is much bandaids to be wasted and fussing to be done. And then it starts all over again!

I am happy to say that the whining has also more or less stopped. Of course it has been replaced with complete bedtime meltdowns. she will run, hide, make up every excuse in the book to avoid naps and bedtime. It takes some work to hook her in but once we find the hook she’s an easy sell. But the lengths she will go to to avoid being caught and carried up for her naps or bedtimes are quite humorous.

My girl is still in love with all things pink and purple. Now she will not even let me give her those great white sunglasses and instead insists on her pink ones. Blech. BUT there is hope. Recently when faced with the ice cream choices at 31 Flavors she spent quite a bit of time changing her mind back and forth and back again but she DID finally opt for the chocolate over the “pink” flavors!!!! That’s my girl!

And here’s the saddest thing ever. My girl is becoming picky. Its true. The 20 months of pure food bliss are changing. I offered her a piece of portobella mushroom recently and she tasted it and took it out of her mouth and said “Yuck.”. I told her to take a bite, like meat. She tried again and said “What IS that? Its EW!”. Ha. She is just not arbitrarily eating anything without even looking at it first anymore. It sucks but I know we had it easy for a long long time.