Catching Up - April 2011

April went by like a big black hole, as usual.  It's the worst time at work - lots of stress and usually lots of extra hours for accountants like me who do personal taxes.  However, we always know it's all over at the end of the month.

Molly and I took advantage of the spring weather whenever we could.  We got a call from Nhan one afternoon, and joined him at our favorite park.

We took the bikes, and they had fun riding around the basketball court

Another sunny afternoon was spent on the swings with our neighbors. 

And later, Molly helped Mama out in the garden.  Molly planted flowers and peas and birdies.

The Easter Bunny came and left some pretty eggs for Molly to find on Easter morning.  It took Molly a little time to catch on, but after she had found them all, she kept asking for more.

And here's that Easter Bunny herself!







Catching Up - March 2011

March is the beginning of so many memories, anniversaries and celebrations that last for the next 3 months.  I met Molly on March 5, 2010.  Here is my story of A Year Ago Today of the 2011 anniversary celebration. 

The next most exciting event this month was... we had a visit from Aunty Loan, from Vietnam!

Our adoption agency holds a big gala every year to raise money for the orphanges. They invite a delegation from Vietnam to come to the gala, and this year Loan was one of the guests. They were able to spend one night in Vancouver, then flew back to Vietnam from the Vancouver airport. We arranged to have a breakfast reception with them at our favorite family-friendly restaurant, and had an emotional, way-too-short visit with them.

Here is a link to another posting about Loan from last year, which explains why we love her so much. 

The other guests include Trang Dai, who is the woman in the picture holding Molly, above.  She is the director of the orphanage in Vung Tau where a couple of Molly's friends are from.  She owns the residence hotel where Molly and I lived for our last month in Vietnam, and was very good to the two of us while we were there.  It was really nice to see her again too!  The other two gentlemen are officials within the provincial government offices that have a part in processing our adoptions.  We don't meet them while we are there, but I am very grateful for their participation in helping Molly and I become a family.  It was wonderful to show them how much we love the children they allow us to adopt, and I was quite proud that as a group, the Vancouver families were able to show them our close friendships, pictures of the many activities the children have had together, and a desire to keep their Vietnamese heritage an active part of the children's lives.

Catching Up - February 2011

The biggest event in February was celebrating Tet, which I already blogged about.  The other special event was a visit from Aunty Margie and Uncle Larry.  They came through town with arms laden with gifts for Molly, and we had a fun time with them:

Catching Up - January 2011

Despite my lack of postings over the last 6-8 months, we have still had a lot of adventures, and there are stories I want to tell here so that Molly and I can look back at them later to enjoy the memories.  I'll get started now, and try to make each month a posting:

Molly's first snowman!  We were visiting the family that provides Molly's daycare, during one of those rare snow days we get on the West Coast.  We built a snowman, and were quite proud of it, but then Ginger ate the snowman's nose.

Molly's new hair-do.  I am still reluctant to cut her hair, but the bangs-in-the-face look just isn't appealing.  Early one morning she let me play with her hair, and I was able to get the bangs into a ponytail.  She was thrilled with it, and so was I.  She has such a beautiful face, and now we can see it!

Jonathan's birthday party.  We were thrilled to get the invitation and celebrate with Molly's little buddy.

A good time was had by all, but no kiddies in the picture as I don't have permission from the parents.

I'm Still Here...

Wow, its been almost 2 months since I last posted anything.  You can probably guess why - I've gone back to work full time.  Yup, now I'm a working single mother.  That means:

1. Sleep deprivation - not Molly's fault, she is a good sleeper.  But I have so much to do every evening after she does to bed.  I'm up until almost midnight most nights getting prepared for the next day.  Packing the diaper bag, cooking meals for the following day, laundry, chores, etc.  Oh, and eating my dinner and sometimes getting a shower too.  I'm always sooo tired.
2. No time - when I think about the first months a year ago when I got back to Canada with Molly, I just have to laugh!  Why did it take me 2 hours to get out of the house?  Why did I think I was so busy?  HA!  Just look at me now!  My house is a disaster, my car is a pig sty, and it is still hard to get out of the house, but again, not Molly's fault - there is always too much to do.  Ergo - no time to blog!
3. Stress - yeah, crying in my doctor's office, hoping she has a magic pill for me.  We decided on a couple of changes I need to make to help me though.  The biggest thing I need to change is to find a nanny to care for Molly in our home.  That will relieve a lot of my stress, and Molly will be a lot happier too.
4. Financial shortfalls - I can't afford daycare.  I run out of paycheck twice a month.  I need new shoes.  I thought that going back to work full time and getting paid would be a good thing, but I obviously don't make enough.  Ah, I wish for the good old days last year when I was living on EI and draining my savings. 

I have actually written a couple of blog postings about going back to work.  I haven't posted them because they are too whiny.  I've been doing lots of whining!  But seriously, are we really supposed to adopt a kid from an institution, drag them across the globe and stick them in another institution for 5 days a week of the rest of their childhood?  Are they supposed to be away from us more hours than they are with us?  Are we supposed to go to work so that another woman can raise our children?  Then pay her lousy wages for taking care of our most precious loved ones?  I'm not judging, just whining.  I know that some of us, including me, have no or few choices to do it any differently.  I know that this is the only way I am able to have a family of my own, and I know that things will get better as Molly gets older and can start wiping her own bum.  I would do it again and again, if I could.  I just wish that lotto ticket in my Christmas stocking had been a winner...

Happy Easter

About a Year Ago

This is what we were doing:

A Sunny January Afternoon

Early in January, we spent a day with our good friends Rita and Ninh.  It was a beautifully sunny day, although chilly, so we bundled up and took the kids for a walk along the riverfront in Fort Langley.

Look at these beautiful views of the river with Mount Baker in the background.

And look at our beautiful children!

After a long walk during which both kids napped in their strollers (something Molly has only done ONCE before!), we were frozen and starving.  So we thawed out at a local cafe and had dinner.

And Molly fell asleep in the car on the way home.  What a wonderful day!

Applesauces

A Year Ago Today

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the day I first met Molly!  You can read my posts about that day here and here. 

Today Molly and I had a leisurely morning, ate our favorite breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast dipped in "applesauces".  We spent some time looking at our pictures from Vietnam, and I did a little crying(!).  Molly loves looking at those pictures and videos from when she was a baby.  I don't know how much she understands yet about why we were there with Nhan and the others, but her Vietnamese family will always be familiar to her as she grows up.  We went to our favorite coffee shop to share a scone together while she read books and I sipped a coffee.  Then afterwards, we went shopping!

We had been given a giftcard as a shower gift for Molly, and decided to spend it at Ikea.  What fun!  We were able to get a tea set, toy fruits, vegetables and breakfast food.  We picked up a set of ice cream cones with cups, a scoop and an ice cream bucket, plus a baking set, all of which we can take to the beach next summer.  And we found a bed for Molly's baby which comes complete with bedding, and needs to be assembled just like any other Ikea furniture!  With what was leftover on the giftcard, we bought a clothes hamper for her bedroom, a roll of paper to color on, some towels to use as doll blankets and a couple of picture frames to save the memories from this special day. 

In the last couple of months, Molly's personality has just blossomed.  I've noticed a big change in the way she is playing, and have watched her imagination start to soar.  She is "making eat, Mama"  with toys that double as a bowl and spoon.  She stirs and blows on the hot 'food', then pretends to eat it, feed it to me, and/or feed it to her dolls.  She has learned to hold her finger to her lips (sideways) and 'shhh' me to say that her baby is sleeping.  She's started putting her dolls to bed, covering them up with blankets.  She's also started to play this way for much longer periods of time without needing me, which makes it easier to cook or do chores during the day.  So getting these types of toys is just so appropriate for the stage that she is at right now.  She certainly doesn't need any more toys - we just got tons of new ones at Christmas - but the toys we bought today will bring both of us lots of enjoyment for a long time.  I can't wait to see what she does with them next!

In the afternoon, Molly laid in bed for 2 hours WITHOUT sleeping, but gave me enough time to get myself ready for our dinner plans.  We got dressed up and went out to a Vietnamese restaurant with some of our favorite people.  My first thought was to share the evening with David, Peter and Chloe, who were with me the moment I met Molly, and David took pictures of the big event for me.  But a few days ago was also the anniversary of when I was with Susan when she adopted Quan, and I wanted to celebrate with them too.  And Merel, Nathan and Nhan were a huge part of my time at the orphanage, so they were invited (but sadly had other committments).  We had to invite Uncle Ron, simply because he is such a big part of our lives, and there was no way we would celebrate without Rita and Ninh either, so the evening was a big, lovely party. 

Thank you to our friends who celebrated with us tonight - for your generosity, your love and friendship, and your continued presence in our lives.  And thank you too, to all the other friends and family in our lives who couldn't join us this evening.  We have had an incredible year together - Molly and I love you all.

Wrapping up the Tet Celebrations

Here is the last (and late) posting of our Tet celebrations.  We ended up missing the Chinese New Year's parade, as Molly and I were both under the weather, and it was a rainy day.  So we stayed inside, pretty much in our pajamas all day.

However, the following weekend Lesia and Mylan and Mylan's grandmother, Ruth, came over so we could all celebrate Tet with other families with children from Vietnam.  A Vietnamese woman opens up her home every year, and with the participation of some of the other parents, they bring the community of families together to celebrate and honor the heritage of our children.  Over the years, it has grown from a core group of families, to include the few of us who were waiting, and more recently to all the boom of families bringing babies home through two adoption agencies in BC.  It was a very large group this year!

There was a dragon dance, where the group of us followed the dragon and the drummers through the neighborhood.  The dragon dances at the door of some of the neighbors, which brings luck and honor to the home.  There was lots of good Vietnamese food, a cake, and many people handed out red envelopes to the children.  It was a wonderful chance to reconnect with other families that we don't see very often.

After eating and visiting indoors, our children needed to get outside again, and there were lots of toys to play with in the yard.  The three of them decided to be a train and play choo-choo.  Nhan made a great caboose:

The rest of the weekend was all about spending as much time visiting with Lesia, Ruth and Mylan as possible.  

Group hugs:

Brunch at our favorite kid-friendly cafe:

And photo-ops as our children run rampant through the restaurant:

Could they be any cuter?

Celebrating Tet in Pictures

Here are some of the promised pictures from our Tet celebrations so far:

The parade:

From our potluck dinner: