so today we drove memphis to chicago. it was even easier than yestrday. the kids were sooooo easy and low maintenance with the exception of the last half hour when Addy and Noah hit their limit. there was only one tiny issue….addy would not nap. this was an issue because tony had plans tonight to meet up with his brother and best friend in chicago. she finally passed out at 4:30pm and slept for an hour and a half. Needless to say now its her normal bedtime and he’s been working on getting her to sleep for over an hour and I finally just kicked him out to go meet his peeps because the baby is wide awake. right now she’s pretending to be asleep and i’m pretending i’m not blogging and we agree not to rat each other out. he may just come home at 2am and she’ll still be kickin’!!!

I am such a bad mom because I just lack patience and creativity entirely when it comes to road trips. I am soooo not the type, like my super-creative and fun step-Mom, who comes up with 200 different creative car games to keep the kids engaged and happy. When they get bored and start to whine, I tell them to go to sleep. When they get hungry, I tell them to go to sleep. When they ask how much longer I suggest they go to sleep and not wake up till we get there. see a pattern?

So its always humorous to me to listen in as they make up their own games.

yesterday teegan bet Noah and Dalton that they could not keep from blinking more than three times during the 10 hour bet and of course they took that bet. Dalton, upon his last blink, decided the best strategy would be to just keep his eyes SHUT for the remaining 9 hours and 57 minutes. This worked real well when it came time for him to help Addison turn on DVDs or get some snacks.

fun times, fun times.

in order to keep the kids happy i kept buying sugar in the form of suckers. First the ring pops, then the baby bottle pops. The second was not so smart namely because we handed them out at a time when addy should have been napping. ya think that’s why she  took 3 extra hours to fall asleep today?! ha. Also when we took her out of the car she was covered hair to toe in candy powder. that was fun.

We’ve been staying at Hyatt Place hotels every night since we went to Lucy’s birthday and they are all identical right down to the green apples in the basket at the entrance. I’m sure Addy is totally confused about why it is that we drive and drive all day only to end up in the same place every night! Bwahahah.

At the hotel tonight I knew she needed her hair washed to remove all the built-up sucker gunk but there was no time a bath and we have to leave pretty early tomorrow. so I told her we’d wash her hair in the sink and I stood her up on the counter. I was still trying to figure out exactly the logistics of how that was going to best be accomplished. She’s a girl who hates showers and does not like having her hair washed in the bath either. I turned on the sink water and was about to lay her down on her back like at the salon when she bent over at the waist and threw her hair into the sink and started giggling hysterically. I washed her whole head of hair that way and she just laughed the whole time. She thought that was so funny. Its the first and only time I’ve had a non-traumatic hair washing experience with her - go figure! Dalton said “obviously its because she was in control, Mom”. he’s going to be such a good parent

well addy is done pretending to sleep now and she is pinching my arm randomly and saying “Is that owie?” and sometimes throwing her foot on the laptop screen in an effort to convey the “do a better job pretending not to blog, mom” message. A few times she’s said “Do you need help typin’, Mama?” and just now she said “You sleepin’, mama?” and I said yes and she said “I’m sleepin’ too”. mmm-hmmm. Its going to be a looooong night.

tomorrow we go to my Mom’s house in Michigan. We’ll stay there through the weekend. But first we plan to stop by Ann Arbor for a lunch date that I made and hopefully a visit for Dalton & Teegan with their Dad who they haven’t seen since several months before we moved to Texas. it should be a short driving day and then we can stay put for a few days. I can’t wait! We are already loving that awesome midwestern grass (and by grass I mean the kind that grows on lawns). Is that weird?

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.

It started two weeks ago when Tony was gone to that local conference. As usual, Addy did not take the absence well. She seemed ok during the day but didn’t like taking a nap without Daddy and the few nights I had to put her to sleep were difficult and sad. One night in particular I told her she would see Daddy in the morning, that she would sing to him and he would come get her from her crib when she woke up. I put her in her crib and half an hour later I heard the infamous singing and knew she had decided that if she just sang, he would appear regardless of the fact that she had not slept and it was not morning. She can’t tell time! It was heartbreaking to see her break down in sobs when she realized it wasn’t Daddy and he was still not home. Ugh. It really takes a lot out of all of us. It is emotionally exhausting for me, it is emotionally stressful for her. Subsequently I feel crabby and stressed and the older kids get the blunt end of that stick. And although Addy was mostly fine during the day, otherwise, I noticed that toward the end of the week she got really REALLY clingy. She just wanted to sit in my lap sucking her thumb all day.

Then the weekend came and I went to Austin without Tony. Obvious, to me, was that Addy would stay home with Tony. I sure wasn’t going to extend her misery by taking her with me and away from him any more than she was already forced apart from him the week prior. She didn’t seem sad that I was leaving, I don’t think she was too upset that I was gone. I’m not the one she really relies on for her most difficult parts of her day - bedtime and naptime. But it was her first absense from me and I think she took it harder than I thought she would.

Subsequently last week was rough. She started freaking out about naps and bedtime when historically she’s always just given me a hug and kiss and gone on her merry way. Last week she positively clung to me, hysterical, saying things like “Daddy taking me away” and “No, Daddy, don’t pull me” and “Daddy gonna get me”. And if I handed her over, she absolutely broke down in hysterical sobs. We aren’t too swift…it took me all week to realize this was not just a stall tactic but a bigger issue.

Yesterday at gymnastics is when it all sort of came together for me. When it was time for her to go into her class…the class she adores and has always skipped off into…she positively freaked out like she does at naptime. She absolutely clung to me. Her coach took her in and she broke down hysterically. The coach got her to calm down, bribed her with stamps and she seemed ok but she refused to participate and a few minutes later she broke down again. We took her out and let her sit on my lap. We talked about it and she was clear she did NOT want to go. Finally, after warmups, another coach came out and bribed her with stickers and this time she hopped off my lap and happily went into her class and then up to the trampoline, gave her coach a big hug and participated with her usual zest and joy, no reservations at all.

Something’s going on with her and I guess it has to do with me. She clearly feels like people are trying to take her from me, randomly, and I can only guess that it has to do with my sudden disappearance last weekend. It really sucks for us but mostly for her that she is so so SO sensitive to absences. I keep hoping, the older she gets the easier it will be. Instead, the more clear and more communicative she is being about how freaked out she is. I know in my heart that the solution is to stop the separations for as long as possible until she grows beyond that fear and insecurity.

Tough stuff, though. Although it is major progress over last year at this time that she is so attached to me, she is still clearly insecurely attached and we really need to work on that, still.