We Fish You a Hairy Christmas and a Hippo New Year!

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Things have been pretty hairy around here lately.

YES, that's our decorated Christmas tree laying on the living room floor! And that's the second time it's fallen. At least Miyah is excited that she gets to decorate the tree every day!

Yesterday was just one of those days! Besides the tree we had many other problems which I won't even mention.

Then Miyah came down with the same virus that keeps revisiting her. The phlegmy (sp?) cough is what she has. Today she had a fever so I finally took her to the doctor just to be sure that what we think is a virus resurfacing every month is really a virus and not something else.

The doctor asked the nurse to swab her nose to test for the flu and so I explained to Miyah that the nurse would put a q-tip like thing in her nose. Well, she says, "Are they going to take the corn out?". I just laughed. I'd forgotten all about the popcorn kernel she claims she stuck up her nose last weekend. Sad that she didn't get rushed to the ER like my first two would have. In all fairness, she sort of changed her story a time or two and said she didn't have a kernel up there "anymore". We've had a talk about not sticking things up her nose before(remember the coffee bean incident earlier this year?).

Anyway, the doctor didn't see anything so we think her attempt at sticking "corn" up her nose was unsuccessful.

Catching Up on November

Happy Thanksgiving! I know....I'm a little late. I do hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and/or friends. We had a very nice Thanksgiving at home with my parents.
For days before my parents came for Thanksgiving I had been telling Miyah that we would decorate the gingerbread house with Grandma and Papa when they came. Then we forgot all about it! The day after they left I asked her if she wanted to decorate the "candy house" and her little face lit up and she asked, "Are Grandma and Papa coming?".
Miyah's eaten nearly ALL of the candy off of the gingerbread house already.

The middle of November was parent observation day at Megan's ballet studio and can you believe I forgot my camera???? I was SO mad!!

Anyway, after Miyah and I watched Megan's ballet class we talked about how Megan and all the students listened to the teacher and did what the teacher told them to do (participation). I knew she had Chinese school that weekend so I used this to my advantage. We talked about the job of teachers and students and by Saturday she was so proud and excited to be a good student that she did wonderfully at Chinese school. She participated and did what the teacher told her to do.

They made little things to dance with and then learned some Chinese dances. It was a lot of fun.
(Miyah's in the forefront in a green shirt)

Miyah and her Chinese teacher, Miss Josephine

Kids Say (and Do) the Funniest Things

Over the past several months Miyah has been so funny. Children this age do and say the cutest things. I only hope I can remember them all when she's grown.

Maybe they won't seem as funny when she's older, but I don't think I'll ever regret keeping these memories. I think part of the cuteness is the way she says them in her sweet little voice.

I've a little collection of photos I've taken of Miyah doing silly and sweet things. I've also tried to write them down.

Here's a few:

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For a while after Megan got her pointe shoes Miyah made pointe shoes out of everything from her socks pulled just right to her wash cloth in the bath tub. The big sister "worship" is so sweet. She wants to be like Megan so badly.

Which is probably a good thing since SHE'S now a big sister. And big sisterhood has been very empowering. We're regularly told she can do _____ because she's a big sister now.

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And like her older siblings, Miyah thinks she knows more than me sometimes. Take this conversation for instance....

Miyah (holding broken banana): It broke, IT BROKE, FIX IT!! (in her best Whinese)

Mommmy: I can't fix it. It's okay, you can eat it that way. That's how monkeys eat them.

Miyah: No, they eat trees. Mouses eat bananas.

Mommy: No, monkeys eat bananas; mice eat....cheese?
(and then I think, maybe she's right?).
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Then there's her imagination...

Miyah: I'm going to turn into a big, big black fishy and swim in the ocean and you're going to miss me.

Mommy: Well, then I'm going to get a big huge net and scoop you up and I'm going to give you a big fish kiss.
She thought that was funny and now asks me what I'm going to do when she turns into a big black fishy.
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Or there's the time a few months ago when we were at the fabric store and she picked up two shoulder pads and held them up to her chest while announcing to all the customers waiting for their fabric to be cut, "Look, my bra!". Megan and I were dying...those are the moments you wish you had a camcorder.
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She also has a habit of grouping everything into families; things both living and inanimate...cups, crackers, crayons, and the worms she found in the sandbox. Several times a day you'll hear her say, "Here's the daddy one, this is the mommy, and there's the brother and sister, and this is the baby". Everything has to be in a family unit. I have a picture of the mommy and daddy worm from the sandbox.


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Technical Difficulties and Just Plain Busyness!

Thank you to everyone who has sent us congratulations about Mei Lin to our personal email. We've had numerous tech problems with our computer in the last few weeks so I appologize if we've not replied. I was checking emails on Matt's laptop, but had just enough time for a quick reply here and there.

Please know that even if we didn't reply, we really, really appreciate hearing from you and love it when you send emails or leave comments. We'll save all these comments to share with Mei Lin. Emails we received when we got Miyah's referrals are in her lifebook. I'v read her some of what family and friends said when they saw her picture or heard what her name meant, etc. and she LOVES those little quotes.

Anyway, the good news is that our computer is back and nothing was lost (phew), though even with the new hard drive we're still having some problems.

I wish I had updates on Mei Lin, but I have nothing...sigh. I've heard her orphanage isn't good at sending information so it may be that we never get an update (but we can pray we do!).

I've learned a lot about her orphanage and the area of Kunming. I'll share some of that in an upcoming post along with some photos. It looks like a great facility....for an orphanage (or "baby home" as we call them around Miyah).

In case you didn't notice I have a new ticker at the top which is our new wait for travel approval (TA) from China. Our Letter of Intent (LOI) was sent to China on 11.30.06, so we start our count to TA from there, I guess. A Letter of Intent is a rather long letter stating why we want to adopt her, how we plan to care for her special need, etc.

Something I found strange is that China wants you to HAND PRINT the entire 3 page (or more) letter of intent! With computers now, I NEVER write anything that long by hand and so major carpal tunnel was setting in by page two. I rarely print besides, so it just looked messy to me.

Anyway, the entire time I was writing it, I was trying to figure out why it was to be handwritten. All I could come up with in my paranoid mind is that the new special needs program requirements (they just came out with some new ones) now includes passing handwriting analysis.

So, I kept wondering what it meant when I dotted my "i" to one side, or varied the way I wrote my capital 'A' (like a teepee or a larger version of the small "a" - I don't have a preference), and so on...

Paranoid? Perhaps.

This whole special needs route is still somewhat of a mystery to me. We probably won't hear anything from China until TA, which could be four or more months from now! Excrutiating!! Although....someone from our agency with a March log-in-date (like us) DID just get travel approval (TA) after ONLY 2 MONTHS!! WOW! That would be incredible, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up....but that would be great!

I'll post again soon...when/if life slows down a bit.