New site!

I have created a new site and am in the process of moving all the information from this site to the new one, but I have already started putting new posts on the new site. Plus I updated the China trip posts with pictures. The new site is:

http://www.babyjellybeans.com/web/do/site/home?ID=192242

There is currently no password, but one may be added in the future. If there is one, just ask me for the password (it will probably be Molly).

I'm a mean mom and proud

I’m a mean mom!

I have decided against elaborate birthday parties for Molly. Birthday parties for children are getting out of control, in my opinion. At about a year old Molly was invited to a birthday party for one of the kids in her class – I don’t know the child or even the parents and I really doubt they knew Molly. Why did they invite her? Because they invited everyone! They even spelled her name wrong! Why did this irritate me so much? I have seen too many friends who spend their weekends shuffling their kids back and forth to birthday parties (sometimes several in a day!) I have been even told that sometimes there is even a gift $ limit, not on the most the gift is to be, but the cheapest it can be. If your gift isn’t good enough, then your child won’t be invited to another party!! I hope to keep Molly’s birthday parties to a minimum and very special, close friends and family only – and I prefer the gifts be made to a charity. I also plan to have Molly attend only parties for children she actually knows!! My strong belief that children’s birthday parties should be a “non competitive” sport (i.e not about who gives or gets the best gifts) has made me quite unpopular. I can live with that. I do regret that Molly will be shunned because she will not be attending every party she is invited to (only attending those where we actually know the child, not every child in her daycare) and she will not be bringing a $50 to $100 gift! I saw this posted on a yahoo site – it will be my birthday bible: http://www.birthdayswithoutpressure.com/ I am not anti-birthday - I am only against lavish, age inappropriate birthdays, and inviting everyone the child has ever met (in my opinion, in order to get more gifts!) Molly is very active in her playgroup and I will invite most of the children, but there are a few I have never met and a few that I have seen once or twice. While they might be perfectly nice children, but we don't know them. I look forward to attending the birthday parties of the children Molly knows (I just wish we could attend the parties for her friends she left behind in FL) - I'm sure that she will have a blast, especially since she will know the child!

La, la, la, la, la - I can sing again!

La, la, la, la la: I’m allowed to sing again!

In a previous post, I mentioned that Molly did not like (or should I say hated) for me to sing. It really upset her. Well, now I am allowed to sing again. One problem…she wants me to sing in Chinese. I know, you are wondering, does Anna speak Chinese? The answer would be no (with the exception of hello, hi, and thank you). However, Molly does have some Chinese language CDs (thanks to my father and his associate in China, Haiping) that she listens to all the time in the car. We sing along to the songs in the car (as soon as Molly gets in the car, she says “listen to Chinese) – I have no idea what I am saying (although I do recognize the tune of many of the songs: “It’s a Small World” “Do your Ears Hang Low,” etc.). I can really only sing the refrain of the songs (and badly at that) because I really have trouble pronouncing the words. However, Molly wants me to constantly be singing – in Chinese only! I make stuff up (if I don’t know how to say something, I just say it louder with more confidence!) So if you are ever in the Dallas area and see a crazy blonde singing mutilated Chinese at the top of her lungs, there is a good chance that that is me! And if so, I apologize in advance and hope the sheer terror you experience does not cause an accident!

Pictures: Molly, Jordan and Elli (with Elli's mom) enjoying playing together. Molly telling secrets to Jordan and Elli - I have no idea what Molly was saying, but she was very serious and Jordan and Elli listened closely and nodded several times. Molly in her fairy wings riding a horse.

My furry baby

My furry baby (misbehaving!) If you click on the picture to enlarge, you will notice that even his toes are pointed. Can cats enter the Summer Olympic diving competition? Beijing, here comes Peajoe!

Big Poop Incident

Big Poop Incident

It took me a couple of weeks to be able to post this story. I had to wait for the trauma to wear off before I could see any humor in this incident.

The afternoon started off well. Molly was taking a nap (or so I thought). It was quiet and I was able to surf the Internet and read my favorite adoption blogs. After about an hour and a half, I look in on my baby and am horrified by what I see. Molly is playing in her toddler bed. Why does this bother me? It’s not that she is playing when she should be sleeping. It is what she is playing with. Molly has taken off her pants and her diaper, which was a poopie one and has decided to use the poop as fingerpaints! Her hands are covered in poop, her sheets are covered in poop that she has grounded into a big circular mess (her masterpiece, watch out Picasso). To make matters worse, Molly never has normal poop, it is always a little on the runny side (which helps with her poop art work, I guess – better consistency for fingerpaint).

Anyway, I am standing in the doorway wondering what to do. She is covered in poop. How do I get it off of her? Do I even want to touch her? Does HazMad respond to cases like this? Where is SuperNanny when I need her?

I go into the room and find that under her armpits are clean so I pick her up (at arms length and nose averted), but now what do I do with her? I plop her into the bathtub. I still don’t know where to begin because I have to get the poop off before I give her the bath or she will just be taking a bath in poopie water (and I would still be sticking my hands in the poopie water!) So I begin by peeling the sheets off her bed and throwing them away! She is still in the bathtub, not saying a word or moving. She is still partially clothed (no diaper or pants, but shirt and sweater are on) and there is no water in the tub, so she is safe while I am ripping her room apart. Fortunately all the stuff animals survived the poop explosion and were clean (I was yelling from the bedroom “any animals with poop are going in the garbage!) Molly and her sheets appear to be the only casualties (although the tub won’t be looking good soon!)

I go back into the bathroom to prepare my de-pooping of Molly. She is still staying very still (she knows Mommy is not happy). Fortunately the hair is poop free and so is her face (at least it appears she didn’t eat any of it!) I begin with wipes on her hands and I get off most of it, but not all (I swear it was ground into her skin). I also work on her legs and feet. I peel off her shirt and sweater which appear to be salvageable. Finally I run the water and wash a subdued baby. I wash her twice, then dress in her in jammies and put her back in a clean bed. She naps for the next 2 hours. I guess all the poop coloring tired her out. I spent the next ½ hour cleaning and disinfecting the tub. Then ½ an hour in the shower washing myself!

I was not a happy mommy! Now I am just hoping that this was a one time occurrence.

I did not get any pictures of the incident (I was too busy), but I did post a few from her ballet class.

(My dear little Molly, posting this little story is payback. You will understand when you are embarrassed by this as a teenager!)

Pictures

A few more pictures! I am going to try and get a couple from her Budding Ballerina class tomorrow morning!

Mama - No singing!!

Mama – No singing!

Molly has finally learned that I cannot carry a tune to save my life. The other day she said “hokey pokey.” I take this as a sign that she wants to hear the hokey pokey song, so I start singing. She screams “no Mama, no singing!!” So I asked, why not? She tells me “no singing, no like Mama singing!” She sure put me in my place (it was like I was on American Idol and in front of the mean guy). I’m thinking that maybe she is just moody from her nap. But later that same day, I start singing in the car. Once again, “mama, no signing.” Ever since, I am not aloud to sing. I really can’t blame her – I really am terrible!

I’m also not supposed to shop – she does not like it (then again, neither do I, but sometimes I have to shop!) I picked her up at day care a week or so ago and she tells me “go my house, play toys.” I said, “no, we have to go shopping.” She fusses and tells me again “go my house, play toys.” I don’t give in and we go shopping. The next day, when I am picking her up at daycare, she says “go my house, play toys, NO SHOPPING.” I burst out laughing and give in, okay, no shopping. I only live 5 minutes from daycare, but Molly reminds me twice on the way home “NO SHOPPING.”

I finally took the plunge and bought tickets to England. I am really looking forward to being in England for my cousin’s wedding and for my family to meet Molly. But am I dreading the flight!! 10 hours each way with a 2 ½ year old – top that with the fact that the 2 ½ year old is Molly – the most active child in the world who does not sleep on flights – can you will understand my fear? I speak to other parents and they tell me how good their child is on the flight and in fact Molly is good if you don’t have to spend the entire time entertaining her. She doesn’t cry or bother other people and is very happy, as long as she is completely occupied with fun things to do (and remember she is a 2 year old, so her attention span, even for fun stuff, is about 3 minutes)! I asked British Air if it was possible to seat her in a different section of the airplane, but apparently parents have to sit with their young children. Sounds unfair to me, but they wouldn’t budge! If anyone has any suggestions on how to keep Molly quiet, please let me know (stickers, food, and DVDs help, but only for so long). Benadryl does absolutely nothing (along with any other medicine that is supposed to cause drowsiness) – can children have Ambien? Haven’t tried that yet! Nothing makes this child sleepy when she decides she doesn’t want to cooperate! Wish me luck or find me a solution, PLEASE!

Pictures to follow as soon as I can get blogger to cooperate!

Christmas & Birthday (written Jan 1st 2007)

Welcome to the Terrible Twos (written over a month ago, but never posted - oops!

So far, the twos aren’t too bad, but it’s only been 2 days since my baby turned 2!!

Unfortunately, Molly celebrated her birthday by being woken up at 4:30am and shoved in a carseat and driven to the airport to catch a flight from Nashville to LaGuardia to Dallas – yes that is correct we had to go east to go west! How this happened is another story, but the gist is that our direct flight the day before was cancelled and American Airlines in all their wisdom decided to reroute us through LaGuardia. When we got to the airport, we learned that the first leg of the flight was delayed and we would miss the connection. So I had to buy a ticket on Southwest (which worked out great, but expensive). I had wanted to fly Southwest to begin with but when I made the original flight reservation back in April, you couldn’t fly from Nashville to Dallas. I much prefer Southwest to American because they allow you to preboard with toddlers.

Anyway, back to the birthday. We arrived in Dallas around 11:30am, at a different airport than my car. Fortunately, Ann and Jordan came and picked us up and took us from Dallas Love to DFW. I got the car, then the cats, and went home! Molly took a nap and opened some birthday presents and then we went out to dinner with Ann and Jordan – they both ate rice and vegetables and a birthday cupcake!

Molly enjoyed her 2nd Christmas very much. She helped put all the presents under the tree and then helped hand out the gifts on Christmas morning! She loved announcing the size of each present as she handed then out (“tiny” “big” “heavy”). She loved opening her gifts too – caught on to how to open them after the 1st gift! She was thoroughly spoiled and enjoyed playing with the toys over the rest of the week in TN. She kept pointing to the room with the toys and saying “play toys.”

She did amazingly well on the flights and even did well at the airport during the 7 hour wait before AA decided to cancel our flight (including 2 hours of sitting on the runway). The portable DVD player was a lifesaver, as was the Kipper DVD Molly got for Christmas!

I'm a terrible slacker!!

I actually have written a couple of posts, but never actually posted them because I needed to upload pictures. OK, tonight I am going to do several posts with pictures!!

2 Posts in One Week!

2 posts in one week – I’m good!

It’s been a busy month since I last wrote my post. My parents came for a visit at Thanksgiving and Molly loved seeing her grandparents! They played and spoiled her tremendously. My dad taught her how to build skyscrapers from legos. She woke up every morning with a huge smile, would point to her bedroom door, and say “see Nanna, Grandad.” This continued after they left which made me sad to hear – she kept looking for them in every room – poor baby missed them!

Luckily we had great weather over Thanksgiving and during their visit, we went out for Thanksgiving dinner, took Molly to several parks, and went to the Fort Worth Zoo. We also went to the Dallas Arboretum with my friend Ann’s China travel group. They were celebrating their one year anniversary of Gotcha Day and were kind enough to include us in the celebration! It was great meeting all the beautiful girls and one special boy from Kunming.

Molly has had her first experience decorating cookies – she didn’t do that much better than me, but shows some promise. She also attempted to eat with chopsticks and let me just say, it is a good thing she is here in the US otherwise she would be starving in China – her chopstick skills are sorely lacking. Her friend, Jordan, though is a pro (first try)!

Sadly it appears that China will be closing its doors to single mothers hoping to adopt from China. I hope that they will reopen soon. I did have a slot for 2007 with my wonderful agency, but decided that the time wasn’t right for me. I enjoy the time I get to spend with Molly and don’t believe that adding another child to our family is the right thing to do yet. I know that I risk not being able to adopt from China in the future, but things may change (China may open again to singles, I could get married, or I may decide to adopt from another country – Vietnam has recently reopened). So, at least for now, Molly will be an only child.

One final Molly story before I go. Molly loves little dum dum lollipops. She gets them sometimes when she leaves daycare. I won’t let her walk around with them, so I decided to take her to Walmart for some final holiday shopping - I could shop and she could have her lollipop. After awhile, with all the excessive teething drool, the stick of the lollipop was so sticky and Molly doesn’t like to touch “sticky” stuff anymore. So she hands the lollipop to me. I assume that she is done with it, but oh no! She just wants me to hold the sticky stick while she finishes the lollipop! And what is worse, I stopped in the middle of Walmart to hold it for her! Is this a spoiled child or what??

Enjoy the pictures of some of the events I mentioned above (you can click on them to enlarge).

Pictures

More Pictures