We have a son!

On July 5th we became the legal parents to our foster son.  His name is Trevor Thomas and he is 4 and 1/2.  He is just 4 months older than Mia.  We are so thrilled to have him as our son.  I can't believe in the last three years we went from barely holding out hope for one child, to having "virtual" twins!  I have to say we are the luckiest parents ever!!
Ever since I've joined Facebook I don't post here nearly as much.  But I think anyone who reads my blog is my Facebook friend.  However I think I'm going to keep the blog up as a record of our journey to be a family.

Here we go again

We just finished Homestudy Part 2!
A social worker came out last Saturday and then again today to interview us.  We talked for almost three hours each time.  She said she shouldn't have to come back and see us again and would email us if there was anymore info she needed.  She's hoping to be done this week or next week at the latest. 
She was very nice and professional and she said she didn't see anything that should prevent the adoption, so that's good. 
So I guess the next step is to get a lawyer to negotiate the adoption with OCS.  We should get a list of OCS approved lawyers once the homestudy is done. 
This is so different from international adoption.
I'll be happy once this is all done!

Good news! We've decided to officially request to adopt of our foster kiddo. We have talked to our social worker and she is starting the paperwork. It will take about six months, but that's nothing after waiting over 3 years for China!
Mia loves him so much and they play all the time. They do fight, but they are starting to work it out and I would say they get along about 80% of the time.
As long as everything goes alright, I'm going to have a son! I get to have two children!! I feel so blessed!

Oh my

Well, hmmm, where to start.
We had a wonderful Christmas break. Things were humming along and then two days before Christmas we welcomed a little foster boy into our home. We knew about him and were planning some transition meetings with him and his current placement, but things happened and he needed to be placed immediately. So, Friday night Mia and I came home from swimming to find a bunch of cars in our driveway. Walked into the house and there was our kiddo. The next day was a whirl wind of last minute Christmas shopping for him!
Obviously this has been and continues to be very very hard for him. But he has been such a trooper.
Mia absolutely adores him and the first thing she says in the morning in "Where's my brother?"
He is 4 months older than her, so it's kinda like having twins. His situation is that he is available for adoption now. We have to foster him for six months, but then we can adopt.
I'm so sorry that he has had so much trauma and disruptions in his life, I wish he hadn't had to go through everything he has. But he did and we are in the incredibly fortunate position to hopefully be his forever family. I have no idea why we are so lucky, I'm just thankful that we are.
We are not allowed to post pictures on blogs or Facebook until we adopt him. But trust me, as soon as that happens there will be a million pictures of him on here!!

*I just want to thank everyone who buys gifts for children off those angel trees in malls. Someone bought the coolest most amazing fire engine and dropped it off at the Office of Children's Services. They wrapped and brought to our house. In the box we found the little paper ornament that had been on the tree and it said "boy, age 3-4" They could have bought clothes or a less expensive toy, but let me tell you, that fire engine made him so happy. I wish I knew who they were so I could give them a big hug.

Not Much

Not much going on. Started school and have been crazy busy. The transition from summer to fall is always hard for me, but it's going okay. Mia is doing great, growing taller by the minute. We got her a real hair style at the salon. She was very good and sat still. It's an inverted bob and it's adorable.

Here is a picture of my little Supergirl!!

Six years ago my brother pasted away while serving our country. I think about him often as Mia gets older and changes so much. I wish I could call him up and talk to him about everything.
I miss you Tom.

福 妍 美 Happy Beautiful Beautiful

Forever Family Day

"About two years ago there was a baby girl in China who needed a family. And here in America there was a Mama and Papa who needed a baby.
Do you know who that baby was?"
"Me!"
"Yep! And who was the Mama and Papa?"
"You and Papa!"
"Your right! So we wrote to the people in China and asked them if we could be your Mama and Papa and you could be our baby. They said Yes! So we got on a plane and flew for a long long time. We finally got to Nanchang and met you! We loved you from the first moment we saw you. You didn't know who we were and were very sad at first, but soon you started to like us and were happy.
I remember the first funny thing in China you did was look at me and blow a raspberry and then laugh and laugh.
Then we flew back to our home in Juneau. You met the dogs and you loved them, they loved you too! People came to see you and were very happy that we were a family. We will always always be a family!
Do you know you were born in the year of the mouse? And that your Chinese name is Fu Yan Mei? Fu means you were found in Fuzhou City, but it can also mean happy.
Yan means beautiful and Mei means beautiful too!
So you are our Happy Beautiful Beautiful Mia Mei mouse!
And we will love you forever and ever!
The End"

She's working on her street cred

Today Mia and I went and watched our friend's two little girls. They are about a year and a half younger than Mia. In the past Mia has acted like they don't exist and she isn't very careful around them. And it's so hard because they really want to play with her. But the last few times she's interacted with them she's done so much better, and today she did great. The girls were lovely and wanted to play with her the whole time and Mia played with them and was kind and patient. On the way to the car I told her that she was a very good girl and this was our conversation:
"No, I not good girl Mama."
"You weren't?"
"No"
"Okay, then you were a horribly rotten girl."
"No I not!"
"What were you then?"
"I dangerous, Mama"

Solstice

This is my favorite time of year, not because the days are so long, but because now they are going to become shorter!! Every summer I complain how all the daylight drives me crazy! That's a big reason I like Juneau, it's farther south so it's not 24 hours of sun (but it's never really dark either) and it's rainy a lot so that helps cut down on all the light.
Fairbanks drove me insane!! It would be 2:00 in the morning and the sun would be shining in my window!
But now we start losing daylight and start slipping into winter. I'm good with that :)

We have a new swimming pool in Juneau and it's in the valley! It's Olympic sized and is an "aquatic park", it has two big slides, an easy entrance pool. It has fountains and a lazy river and a bunch of other cool stuff. I have been putting off taking Mia because I knew the minute she saw what it was, well, there was no putting that genie back in the bottle. So now all I hear is "I wanna go swimming mama. Can I go swimming? Papa take me swimming mama? I go sleep and wake up and go swimming? I sleep in my swimming suit mama?" To make it even more exciting she is just barely potty trained so we are always ready to make a run for the bathrooms. I ordered a new suit from LLBean that should be here next week, then I'll get to go in the pool with her and Graham.
That's about it for exciting life in Juneau right now. I'll take it :)

Oy Vey

I got my mom an iPad so that she can Facebook with Mia Mei. She misses her so much and her health isn't good enough to travel to Alaska. So I figured I'd get her an iPad and her and Mia can see each other and talk all the time. Oh my gosh, I'm surprised I have any hair left. Have you ever tried to explain how to use an iPad over the phone? She has no idea how to swipe to get to the next page and she's amazing she can just tap on "one of those boxes" and have it do something. I e-mailed my cousin to see if her or her husband would go help her. They are glad to do it. Now I just have to get her Internet and she'll be all set to Facebook her granddaughter. She'll be the coolest grandma in the senior home!

Had Mia's 3 year check up with the doctor today. She is 39 inches tall and weighs 33 pounds. This is apparently very big for a three year old, but the doctor was very happy with her health. She did say she had big tonsils and asked if she snores. YES! She's so loud she often wakes me up. Then she asked if she sometimes stops breathing for 10-15 seconds at night. Yes again, in fact it scares me sometimes. She said it's sleep apnea and we might want to talk to someone about taking her tonsils out. Yikes, I don't know. I hate the idea of surgery. We'll think on it for awhile. Right now we are enjoying our great big giant (potty trained) Chinese baby!!

Grouchy

Or, we can say it like it really is, I'm bitchy. And I have no idea why. It's probably just the change from teaching to having summer off, which is NOTHING TO BITCH ABOUT so I don't know what my problem is.
The more I think about it the more I think I need to get out of Juneau for a little while. This is my whole world, all 28 miles of road, there is no place else to go. No driving to the next town to get Taco Bell. No driving up to the big city to watch a play. No nothing.
But I'm not a good traveler, so...Hmmmm
I'm thinking maybe a ferry trip to Sitka. I think there's a totem pole park there and probably some different restaurants (Oh, I hope they have Taco Bell, but they probably don't). I'm sure there are touristy things we could do and it would get me out of Juneau.
This might be something to look into. We have a dog/house sitter who is chomping at the bit to house sit for us again (a friends teenage daughter and she wants to make some money) and she's great, so I wouldn't have to worry about the house or dogs.
This might be a plan.
Has anyone been to Sitka??

So I want to yell it from the roof tops, stop people in the store and brag, put up a banner in front of our house:

SHE WOKE UP DRY THIS MORNING!!!!
and
WOKE UP DRY FROM NAP TIME!!!!!
AND
NO ACCIDENTS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh this is going so much easier than I could ever have hoped for. I know it's because she's older and is really ready for it. But it's really not been a fight at all. She did ask for pull ups today once, but was okay when I told her they were just for when she went to sleep. I didn't realize I had been feeling so much pressure about this. I was sooooo scared to even start. Seriously, I was terrified. I thought it was going to be a freaking battle, no, more like WWIII and I was going to end up damaging her little psyche.
I'm just so relieved.
I know there will be set backs, but I'm fine with that. I'm just so happy with her progress.
Okay, done bragging.
:)

The Heavens parted..

...and the angels sang!
Okay, I'm sure I'm going to jinx myself and I know it's only been a couple of days, but I think Mia's getting the whole potty training thing!! She has had some accidents here and there, but for the most part she's asking to use the potty. Getting a fist full of M&Ms as a reward is a good motivator. Sometimes when I think she should try and sit on the potty and she says "No", I'll go to the bathroom and say "Well, I went potty so I get M&Ms" and then eat some myself. That usually motivates her to at least try. And I get M&Ms! It's win-win!
The IRS is still fucking with us. We sent off all our receipts and invoices showing how much we paid for the adoption so that we can get the rest of our adoption credit. It will probably be months until we hear. I thought after I got her birth certificate all the government paperwork involved with the adoption would finally be done. I am now realizing it will never be finished. NEVER. She will be 35 and I'll be filing a home study or getting fingerprinted or something.
But, she's getting potty trained so, let's end on that happy note!

Ugh, I finally scummed to the pressure. I'm potty training Mia. I kept saying I don't care if she's older when she potty trains, she'll give up the pull-ups when she's ready. Well, I think the fact that she can change her own pull-up is a big clue that she's ready.
Today we said goodbye to the pull-ups and howdy to some Hello Kitty panties! We went through 6 pairs, but she went pee in the potty twice, so there was much celebrating!!
She wants to be a baby. She wants to be my baby. I told her she will always be my baby and gave her extra hugs and cuddles.
She's still wearing pull-ups at night (I'm not insane) and if this totally stresses her out then we'll go back to pull-ups and try again in a few months.
So there is my thrilling life. Oh, and I bought a really cool ice coffee cup from Starbucks this morning. I always walk by those displays and today I finally bought one. It was so exciting! Seriously, it was. I was giddy walking back to my car with an iced latte in my new Starbucks cup. I even knew how pathetic I was but that didn't dampen the excitement.
Don't you wish you were me?

First day of summer vacation and I wake up at 5:00am. That's so not funny. But it was nice having the house to myself and just getting to enjoy reading my book and not feeling rushed to do anything.
We took our old dog Fred into the vet. I was afraid it was going to be bad news, but they were able to take the (huge) tumor out and he's doing great. We had to leave him at the vet's for surgery and on the way out Mia was crying that she wanted "her Fred". It was pretty pathetic. But he's okay and we'll pick him up tomorrow.
Mia and I went to the glacier again today and she is convinced dinosaurs live there.
"No bears, Mama, dinosaurs."
"No baby, dinosaurs aren't real anymore, but bears are!"
"No Mama, dinosaurs live here"
"Okay, remember what walked through our front lawn two nights ago?"
"Yes, it was T-Rex"
"NO IT WASN'T! It was a black bear!!!"
"No Mama, dinosaur"
"Okay, fine, you win. Guess I better get a bigger can of pepper spray then"

restart

Wow, It's been a long time. I'm going to try and do better. Now that I have Facebook I don't feel the need to blog so much, but I want more of a record of my days, so back to blogging.
Today is the first day of summer break so of course I woke up at 5:00am. I was going to take a walk to the glacier but it's kinda foggy out and I"m afraid of bears. Once the tourist buses start up I feel safer.
Mia is officially three and is doing great. She has decided to give up naps, which I feel was a very poor decision. She will regret it when she's older!
I read a friend's blog and have decided to take up cross stitching again. So that means a trip to Jo-Ann's.
Graham and I are thinking about going to Sitka this summer. Or maybe somewhere else on the ferry.
Oh, I can't believe I forgot the most important thing! The last Jean Auel book FINALLY came out. I started reading this stupid Clan of the Cave Bear series 32 years ago and can now finally finish the story! I'm reading just a little bit at a time to make it last longer. It's stupid and ridiculous and total cave man porn, but damn it I waited 32 years, I'm finishing the series!!!!

Three Years Old!

Wow! How did that happen? I have a three year old? For a long time I didn't think I'd have a baby at all, and now I just finished throwing a big party for her third birthday!! She's changed so much from when we met her. She's went from this:

Our scared little Mia we met in China.

To this happy little girl putting extra sprinkles on her cupcake!

I don't know how we got so lucky! I honestly don't know how I could love anyone anymore.
Happy birthday my sweet Mia Mei. And may you have many many many more to come.

Finally!

We just came back from court where a judge issued the Final Degree of Adoption. We only did this so we could get an Alaskan birth certificate. It would have been difficult to try and register her in school or girl scouts or whatever with her Chinese birth certificate even though it is translated. So after a ridiculous amount of paperwork, money and idiocy (on the clerks part) we finally went to court today and she is now an official Alaskan.
This marks the end of 5 years of paperwork, red tape, bureaucracy and hemorrhaging money. It feels like there should be a choir of angels singing!