Good Fun

Pryce had his first sleepover party with a friend at our house. His best little friend, Matthew, celebrated his birthday a few weeks ago. Pryce always remembers Matthew's birthday. June 1 will arrive and Pryce will say "Mom, 11 more days until Matthew's birthday"....so cute. So when I realized that we would most likely not be able to attend the party, I suggested we have Matthew over for the night....we decorated a cake, we made cards, went swimming, we built a fort, the boys hid Matthew's gift and sent him on a treasure hunt, great fun. As you can see from the pix, though, I think MK had the greatest fun of all. Much to Ryan's dismay, I decided to give her a piece of Matthew's cake just to see how she would react. Ryan does not like a good mess so he was a little fretful when it was all said and done....a trip to the pool was just what the dr. ordered. The boys love to play with daddy in the pool and Mason-Kate's new thing is jumping in. She will prompt me to count "1,2,3...gooo" and in she goes. On a totally different subject, back before Mason-Kate's surgery, Ryan was able to get a great picture of her cleft palate. Now that it has been somewhat fixed I thought that we would share the before and after shots just so you can all see what a difference a surgery makes in a hole. Truly amazing! Happy 4th!

You mean I can keep doing this???

MK and the boys enjoying some pool time

MK before and after the cleft surgery

AHHHH, Food....FINALLY!

Yep, we went to the surgeon today for a follow-up visit....funny thing is that I asked Ryan last night what he thought the dr. would say. Well, Ryan hit it right on the head....the dr. said that yes, she has a small hole, he does not expect it to close as it involves more than one layer of her tissue, he will do a surgery next year at some point, it will not effect her speech so much and SHE IS FREE TO EAT! Yippee! Needless to say, we came home and I immediately sat her down in her chair to give her some real food. I chose cheese (the dr. said soft foods through the end of next week and then it is back to cheerios, crackers, etc.). So, I put some pieces of cheese on her tray. Her response? She looks at it for a second and then proceeds to pretend to pick it up and put it into her mouth. Then she just looked at me and laughed. I told her to eat it and she still just stared at me....so, I put a piece in her mouth. She was thrilled! Then, I walked off for literally two seconds and when I came back, the cheese on her tray was all gone. She has been eating since....pasta, bread, more cheese, cake, whatever she can get her hands on. We will go back in three months. That is our latest news....our week was a calm one for a change. It was soooo nice to be home and not have any big, huge schedule that we had to follow. The boys are finishing up with swim team today at the district meet. They have had such a wonderful time with that this summer. Last night at their banquet they received trophies and awards....Pryce, his was the "opposite of my brother award" and Colin, his was "the logical award"....both very fitting to their personalities. My boys are so different....Pryce asks "why" after the fact and Colin asks "why" a million times before the fact. Now I have to mention our fourth child....the dog. Finley joined our family a month before we got our referral for Mason-Kate. He is the best dog for our family, small, he doesn't shed, full of energy yet he sleeps well, etc.....so, we have this dog. Ryan has said all along that the dog was harder to adjust to over having another child in the house. Here is another reason why Ryan is right.....yesterday morning the boys wanted to go outside to play Narnia, I told them that was fine and suggested they take Fin out with them. They obliged, all three went outside and I went about getting ready for the day (it was like 8am-ish, early)....next thing I know, the boys are running inside telling me that Finley had been digging holes in the yard. Sure enough the dog is covered in dirt and mud - this does not bode well for an inside pet of the tan fur nature. He was so dirty that when I put a bowl of water into his crate for him, he went to drink from it and it immediately turned black from all of the dirt around his face. I was not happy and decided that the dog would have to be held in crate captivity until we could give him a bath. So, we went about our day - the dog in his crate whining, the children and I out and about. While we were out I spotted Petco and their "Grooming" sign. I went in and asked if I could make an appt. for my more than dirty puppy. Sure, they have one for that afternoon. Great. We came home, the kids rested, Fin whined, then it was time to take Fin to the groomer and MK to the dr. So I tell the boys to get the dog, their shoes and get into the car. I had good intentions of our afternoon going by smoothly. We get to Petco....I ask the boys to grab Fin and help me take him inside. This is Pryce's response: "Uh, Mom, we don't have any shoes!" At this point, we are not only going to be late, but now we don't have any shoes....the boys cannot go into the hospital for MK's appt. without any shoes. What does one do? Well, I figured I couldn't leave the boys in the car so their little shoeless selves jumped out onto the hot pavement and ran into Petco with the anxious dog, MK and I followed. Inside, the guy is not sensing the urgency of my late situation as he tells me that they can't groom Fin without shot records....oh please, I say, they called the vet earlier and all is good, I promise. Of course we had to stand there for what seemed like forever, my children with no shoes, MK begging to get down, the dog going to the bathroom, the smell - finally, the guy says all IS good and they will take Fin. Great! Back across the hot pavement we go and into the car, still no shoes and still late for the dr. appt. I call Ryan, tell him the situation, suggest that either he stop to buy the boys shoes and they will pay him back or one of us will go in for her appt. while the other stays outside with the shoeless children. He chooses the purchase of shoes and begins a search for a store - he is right by the hospitals where department stores are scarce, drugstores are aplenty. I put the van in high gear and we trudge forward. Ryan calls, he has shoes for the boys - fake crocs, the boys owe him $6 each. They got off pretty easy. We all make the appt. 15 minutes late - not that bad, considering. As if the story ends there....meanwhile, back at Petco. the groomer is assessing Fin and decides that the "summer cut" he was planning to do just won't work as Fin has too many mattes in his fur, he will have to do a full blown shave. Finley is a Chihuahua/Poodle mix with what used to be long, straight, fluffy fur. So cute. For those of you who were faithful Friends watchers, our dog now looks like the furless, sleeky cat that Rachel purchased on one of the episodes or, for a more vivid picture, he looks like a short haired, floppy eared Chihuahua on stilts. It is awful! Funny, but awful. Until next week.....

You're joking, right, you mean I can eat?? HOORAY!!!!!







Finley before and after....

Vacation

Vacation is a wonderful thing. The children (and the adults!) had a great time at the beach....Colin and Pryce spent their week riding the waves, playing football, watching too much tv and eating lots of special treats. Mason-Kate loved the ocean. She was not afraid at all to walk into the crashing waves and she loved to lick my shoulder to taste the salt (yummm!). She is not fond of the sand. She loved sitting on my lap and eating her daily snack of chocolate pudding while she watched the children playing on the beach. So, in a nutshell, that was our week....the pictures tell the rest of the story.

We started off the week trying to get some pictures of MK on the beach....

As you can see, she became quite tired of all the pictures! Enough, already!

MK taking it all in from the wagon; The boys riding some waves.

Playing with cousin Emma



Come here and gimmie a kiss.....

You can see (and hold) all kinds of interesting things on the Garden City pier.

All this vacationing stuff is wearing me out.......

Long Update, No Pictures....

It will not be news to most of you that our week has been, yes, BUSY! I thought for sure things would be slower this week with Colin and Pryce in church camp but, alas, that has not been the case! Because we have spent so much time on the go this week, I thought I would use this post to talk about our time with Mason-Kate. On June 17th we will celebrate 3 months with her! WOW! She has grown so much physically and emotionally. Her hair has grown probably an inch, her feet have grown a centimeter or two, her little legs have gotten taller and her eyes have remained those beautiful brown eyes! She is trying to speak....she repeats apple (ahhh-pullll or sometimes ahhhh-llll), she says hi and waves bye, she says "ni-ni" for goodnight, she sings in the car and babbles when she is being entertained at home. She is walking all over, no longer afraid to walk across the room to a toy that she may want to play with. She has gotten her first molars (so sad that she can't put them to use yet!) and she has a somewhat repaired palate. She loves to show off her nose, eyes and her little belly as those are the body parts that she knows at this point. She is quite the little shopper as long as I am either holding her or she is free to walk holding my hand....I have also discovered that she loves the buggies that are offered in some stores, she prefers this over her stroller. We purchased our first official pair of pink shoes this week....mary jane style crocs, light pink and just adorable....she marveled at them for a long time....then she decided to see how it would feel to walk with them on. Lets just say that it is somewhat hard for a one year old to walk when bending over and staring down at their feet! She will take anything that remotely looks like a phone, hold it up to her ear and say "hi". She has now decided that we can compromise on the stair climbing issue....she will sit on the first stair with a toy or two and play. As cute as she is, she does have her "dark" side, the side that I don't mention a whole lot and the side that only presents itself under certain circumstances. One example of this is expressed at mealtime. We will give her a bottle, she will inhale it, she will put her hands up beside her face and do a two syllable sound for "all gone", we will tell her "yes, all gone" and she just flips, literally. She goes from this sweet, cuddly little angel to this irate, screaming animal in no time at all. I know, I know, you are saying to fix her more....we do, but the time between bottle one and bottle two is LONG. Then there are the moments when she is told "no"....oh my goodness, that does not go well at all. And then there are the visits to the doctor....those are the worst! In fact, we visited yesterday for an ear check-up. Mason-Kate loves the waiting area....she will walk around and say hi to everyone, she points to the other children and smiles, she just really doesn't mind it at all until they call her name to come back. Horrific describes the next 45 minutes we spend behind closed doors waiting on the doctor. Very frustrating from my end as there isn't a thing that I can do but sit there and let her scream. Yesterday she just kept pointing to the door to leave....she got louder and louder when I repeatedly told her that we could not leave. About 15 minutes into our wait, I called Ryan to vent and he asks, "Did she already have her shots?"....shots, what shots? I had to enlighten him on the fact that there were no shots involved, she was just screaming like that because she was at the doctor. It is amazing, though, how she turns it off and on like no other. No sooner had we gotten into the car did she start singing and talking and pointing to the things we passed in the car. When we arrived home, she walked inside and yelled for Colin and Pryce who of course came running to her....she then gave them each a kiss and proceeded to play happily the rest of the evening. Oh, and on a celebratory note, her ears are both CLEAR. Yippee for that. I think had the doctor said they were still infected after all of that, I would have asked for my own prescription. So, that is our MK 3 months post Gotcha Day. She is proving to be quite a mess, but a sweet mess at that! Meanwhile, the boys have been quite dillusional the past several days. They seem to think that they need a BMX dirtbike. They have woken up each morning to tell me of yet another dream they had of themselves riding on their new dirtbike over mounds of dirt and never falling. Ryan and I sat down to discuss this with them one evening. We basically said there would be no dirtbike due to lack of funds needed to purchase the dirtbike. Problem solved, Santa will bring it. HMMMM, still lack of funds. Also on their minds this week has been swimteam. Their first meet was cancelled due to inclement weather. Very disappointing. On Thursday, though, Ryan and I watched proudly as the boys both stepped up to their diving stands with confidence, took their dives and swam their individual events. To have that courage is awesome! As I was kissing them goodnight later, I, once again, told them how proud I was of them. Colin looked at me and said "I was proud of myself!" That means the world to me.

Yippee for Barney

Finally I have found a show that Mason-Kate will sit and enjoy watching so that I can put myself together in the mornings. She loves Barney! Thank goodness! That has literally been my biggest challenge since Mason-Kate arrived. She does not like for me to just put her down to play so I either have to ask the boys to help or let her big brown eyes fill with tears while she miserably cries until I pick her up. So, hats off to Barney! He has saved our day!

Imagine

This week has been full of imaginary play in our home! I just love watching the boys go from being bored stiff to being immersed in their own creative play. It started early this week when I asked the boys to please entertain MK for a moment. They decided to open their own business, a dumping site. Mason-Kate had the pleasure of being a "dumper" for their company. Mid-week they went back to one of their old games of Narnia. My mother gave them each a sword (I promptly had them sawed off at the top to avoid an unfortunate injury) and they have battled the creatures of Narnia for several days now....the playset in the backyard is the castle, one side of the house is the wardrobe entrance, the other side is the wardrobe exit....thankfully the boys are battling on the same side so we haven't had a sword injury to date. They have summed up their week today by being Kings....they have even built thrones around the house to "rule" from. In between all of this, they have opened a book store and they have become used car dealers (hmmm, could it be that the talk of buying a new car around here is getting to them???). Imagination is a wonderful thing....in fact, I have begun to use that as a coping technique myself. I just imagine that there is someone out there who knows the answers to all of my questions (this stems from the fact that I have called two state agencies today and neither one has had a concrete answer to what I have asked - again, hmmmm), I imagine that MK does not cry EVERY time that I choose to put her down, I imagine that my house is clean despite the boys clothes/toys are on the floor, etc., etc., etc. Imagination, it is a wonderful thing! On another note, Mason-Kate continues to amaze us. I visited a toy store with her this week. She immediately started "uhhhing" for me to get this one toy on the shelf for her to play with. I sat there in amazement as she proceeded to push and pull this toy as if she had played with it before....this particular toy was not one that was easy to figure out yet she knew exactly how to operate it....so, of course, I wonder, did she play with something like this in China, possibly her foster mother had one? Not sure, but she sure knew how to work it. I have also figured out that she does not like to have people in her space. I have noticed in the past month or so that she will literally swat at people like flies when they get too close to her. I am not used to this. The boys were and have always been so friendly to people, strangers included. I continue to try to mold their friendliness in a safe way. Mason-Kate, on the other hand, may need to be unmolded somewhat of her stranger fetish. I am also learning that sometimes it is just best to let her cry versus me trying to fix everything that is wrong in her world. After her surgery, I carried her most of the 24 hours of the day for about a week. She would still love for me to do this. I can't. This makes her mad. So, now I know that when she arches her back into a perfect "U" shape, there isn't really anything I can do to better things for her...she is just mad and she needs to cry to make it better in her mind. On the other hand, if she sits compliantly and then cries when I walk away, she genuinely needs to be held and comforted. She has also begun to call (really yell) for us and the boys. She will yell "Ma Maaaaa" or "baaa baaa" for the boys or "gaaaa" for daddy. Her little (or should I say large) personality continues to emerge. Mason-Kate's palate is slowly healing. She does have a hole that we do not expect to heal on its own due to the location and size. It is not huge but it does go through every layer of her tissue. She has adjusted well to her liquid diet and remains a healthy girl. "Little lady" describes her best at mealtime. Drinking is sometimes messy so she has begun to lean into me when she needs her face wiped off....or she will politely mash the napkin all together and pretend to wipe herself. She is quite the little fish and is just as happy as a lark floating around the pool in her float. The biggest laughs we have gotten this week have been from playing chase....she loves a good game of cat and mouse! Until next week....

Pryce had his last T-ball game this week. MK liked to hang out in the dugout...

MK enjoying a nice hot day at the pool

Oh, the People We Meet

One of the things that I have enjoyed most about our adoption journey has been the people that we have met along the way. It is amazing to me how circumstances will bring people together. That has happened to us countless times since we began our process two years ago. One such encounter happened in January just prior to our travel to China. We had to get refingerprinted in Atlanta and it was there that we met a couple who was just beginning their "paperchase" phase for international adoption. Ryan and I spent sometime talking to them in between our fingerprint sessions and we all just hit it off. They sent MK the cutest dress once we arrived back home....today she proudly wore it to church and then proceeded to do a little photo session when we arrived back home. She is very fond of the camera as long as it is focused on her! So, Ashley, this post is for you so that you can see a smiling face when you are feeling discouraged about the "wait". It is well worth it! And, oh the people you will meet along the way....for us, it has come full circle. In the beginning, we sought out people who had already adopted from China. We loved to hear their stories. It provided us with the hope that we needed to continue forward. Now, we have our beautiful baby girl and we hope to provide that "hope" and encouragement to families who are out there waiting.