See, we do dress up around here sometimes

I will admit it, I am more of a shorts and t-shirt kind of girl. Actually, my budget as of late seems to cater more to that kind of couture, what can I say.
My eldest daughter is also of the pant/short, casual preference (when she keeps her clothes on).
Brennyn, well she is happy to put on whatever type of clothing is handy, dress, shirt, doesn't phase her in the least. She is still a happy go lucky kind of kid.

Sunday we attended a function for Blair and the dress code was not shorts. I took advantage of my girly looking children and snapped a few shots.
I did almost pass out when Avery begged to wear her pretty bracelet and ring (seriously, she is not in the least interested in any girly things, well at least until yesterday). I have to include the picture of the bracelet, she was so happy to have it on. She was even happier when people told her how pretty she looked. I was very surprised that she did not respond with an "I know", because she did say that to me before we left.
Oh, and both girls are sticking a pose on the way out of the event. Avery really seems to think she should be on America's next top model. I just have to break it to her that we aren't Americans, that and she is about 16 years too young.

Slacker blogger

Only have time to add a few pictures.

Had this post in the edit section, wasn't going to hit publish.

I feel the need to chat about China's waiting child program. Something has been on my mind lately.
As most of you are aware, our youngest daughter was a waiting child. We decided to adopt from the waiting child program for many reasons, one of which is that we wanted our second child to be the same ethnicity as our first. Also, my husband had open heart surgery when he was an infant. We initially requested to adopt a child with a heart condition since my husband has lived with that his whole life.
As it turns out my daughter does not have a heart condition, but she will be having many operations over her lifetime.

This brings me back to what I've been struggling with a little. I see so many people commenting about how the waiting children from China have minor correctable medical needs. I love that people are advocating for China's waiting children and yes, some of the children do have minor correctable medical issues. However, many children have medical needs that are a little more serious. My concern is that some families may be going into the adoption process not understanding how involved some of these needs can be.
I also think that we, as adoptive parents sometimes don't like to talk about the difficulties we are dealing with.
We want to talk about the happy times, positive moments, all the good times.

Personally, I am a research queen. I read many books, talk to people (well mostly online since I am on the shy/somewhat antisocial side), and research the issues. Does that mean that I was prepared for our second trip to China to adopt a 2 year old who had spent her whole life in an orphanage? Not so much, yet I felt completely prepared boarding that plane to China. In reality it was a terrifying (for my daughter and us), heart wrenching experience. Yes, my research did show me what could happen but when you are in that moment it is a whole other ball game.
Now, do not misunderstand me, I love my daughter. She is the most amazing little girl, so cuddly, outgoing and happy (mostly), smart and very strong. I would do that trip over again in a second. I'm also not going to sugar coat it, we as a family struggled. It was a huge adjustment for Brennyn, living with a family who spoke some funny language, leaving the only home she had ever known, seeing doctor after doctor. Brennyn cried and screamed a lot those first 4 months home (and I don't mean a little shriek now and than, no I'm talking about a full blown breaking glass scream). She was also a very sick little girl(parasites, etc.).
I just think that sometimes families may be going into a waiting child adoption a little unprepared for the outcome.
As I mentioned in my rambling, my daughter will need many surgeries. Her "condition" is not correctable. The surgeries are to make her hands as functional as possible. Although, if you ask me her hands are just as functional as any other 2 year old but I digress.
There are also some other medical issues that we are working with as well.
We were well aware that our daughter would need surgery. We were also given extra time to have her file evaluated by other doctors. Our agency was very thorough and had given our daughter's file to a few other doctors before we were even given her referral. We had more than 3 weeks to make our decision at that time. This was when some agencies received agency lists from the CCAA and the agency was responsible for making the matches. This is no longer the case (at least not in Canada) as each agency must use the shared list. Our agency and the doctor who reviewed Brennyn's file were very honest about her condition and the fact that they really did not have any answers, it was a bit of a guess as to what her condition actually was and is. I just knew that we would do whatever she needed, no matter what and that she was our daughter. Again, I knew all this ahead of time, so it was no surprise that Brennyn will be spending some time at Sick Kids.

All this to say that sometimes I think by not talking realistically, we are doing waiting parents and the waiting children a disservice. Families need to be prepared for the reality of adopting a waiting child. Not all medical conditions are correctable and minor.

Long weekend recap

Great time had by all. The girls had a blast, the weather was gorgeous. Best Victoria Long weekend weather in years (maybe ever). I asked Brennyn if she liked the trailer "YES Mommy" was her enthusiastic answer.
Avery even stared riding her two wheeler, she was refusing to get on that bike at home. I think once she saw all the other kids whipping around on their cool bikes she had to do it as well.
Oh, and it was Grandma's birthday too. The girls really enjoyed Grandma's b-day cake, so did Grandpa. I'm not even sure if Grandma had a piece??
Avery had a great time playing with a ladybug, she insisted on some pictures of said bug.
Finally had a picture taken of the family, if only I had known ahead of time. Perhaps I would have actually brushed my hair and put on half decent clothes. At least this photo is realistic, ha ha.

Woohoo, beach season is upon us once again. We are heading to the trailer for a few days since it's the long weekend. Brennyn's first time to Grandma and Grandpa's trailer.
I'm a little nervous, when she cries at home I can shut the windows. Can't really do that at a trailer. Like I've said before, overall she is such a happy kid. However, when she's not happy she makes sure everyone in the neighbourhood knows it. Her scream could put a B-movie horror actress to shame. Hmm, maybe a future job opportunity in the making, scream queen.

Anyhoo, I think she'll love it. Both my girls love to be outside, and the beach is so beautiful.
Avery has been counting down the sleeps. I'm sure she'll be awake at 5:30am tomorrow ready to go.

A beautiful sunny day

We finally had a little sunshine in our neck of the woods. Blair decided to put some soil and seed on the lawn. Can't seed the lawn without a little water, so out came the sprinkler.
I heard a little laughter coming from outside (from both Dad and daughter). Avery was soaked. She played outside in the freezing cold sprinkler water for an hour. Brennyn saw the fun and jumped in as well.
No pictures of Brennyn because I tried to keep her out of the water, since she had a bad cold. Totally gave in and let her play for a few minutes.

Conversations with Avery

"Mom, you have a baby in your tummy". Umm, no, no I don't Avery. "Yes you do, you're pregnant".

Okay, so maybe I've been eating a few late night snacks lately. I didn't think it was that noticeable.

Avery's Mandarin teacher just had a baby, so Avery is obsessed with having babies in her tummy, and everyone Else's. That's the explanation, honest. She also seems to think she is going to have another little sister, but I've tried to explain to her that she seems to be having a hard time with one little sister, never mind two.

One would think that we've been to a lot of birthday parties around here, or we've been doing some serious celebrating. We haven't, but Brennyn's favourite song to sing is none other than Happy Birthday.

Everyday I hear her singing "Hapy birday to yuuuu". She loves it, and sings the whole song. It is just so cute.

Avery's favourite song is the Waving Flag song (as she calls it). Probably because she hears it everytime her Dad puts on his World Cup soccer game (apparently it's the song for the world cup).

This is what happens when you are making dinner and decide that the kids should not watch TV anymore. Not that I'm admitting to putting on a little Tre*hou*e while I attempt to make dinner, nope not me. Oh, and just because my 2 year old can flawlessly say tre*house does not in anyway reflect the amount of TV my children watch. Actually, anytime I turn on the TV she runs in from nowhere and demands "tre*house". Usually, she gets a "NO, we are not watching Treeho*se at 7:00 in the morning" (or whatever time it may be). Sometimes mommy does like to watch the news, you know to have a little adult conversation, I mean to see what is happening in the world.
I should have known it was way too quiet behind me. How much trouble can 2 kids get into while I am in the same room?
The chairs were covered in little tiny heart and ladybug stickers. Avery went to town with Brennyn's stickers (she got them at Sick Kid's for being so good at the blood bank, I mean lab).
Although, according to Avery, Brennyn started it.

As an aside, it is snowing here today in Southern Ontario. I really don't remember ever seeing snow in May.

EDIT: I don't know why that picture went sideways. It was the correct way before I hit publish??

Tre*house, for those people who don't live in Canada, is toddler tv heaven. Honestly, I do limit the amount of TV my children watch. No, really, I do.

adoption, ever changing emotions

Another post about adoption, this time my own.
I finally sent away for my original birth certificate. I should explain that Ontario recently opened up all adoption records (a year or two ago). Before this point, all you get receive was your non-identifying information, which gave you a brief description of birth parents, etc. I've had that for about 5 years. My mom was given something similar when I was adopted, but for some reason the one I was given had a little more info on it (nothing identifying of course).

I was very surprised when my birth certificate arrived in the mail 4 days after I sent for it. I figured it would take at least 6 months for it to come.

After 35 years, I finally had my original name. Not only that, I also had the name and birth date of my birth mother.
The emotions that surfaced surprised me. Me, who never really wanted to search for these people. Suddenly, it seemed possible, I had a name, an old address (35 years ago), and a birth date.
I thought I'd just type that name into the computer and presto, I'd have an answer. Nope, no go. Although, I did find someone with that name on classmates, the timing of graduation was correct, as was the city the school was in. Unfortunately, the last name is very common in a city known for it's German descendants. Oh yes, I totally went nutty and signed up for the gold membership anyway. Yes, I even sent some crazy message to the person. No response, of course, since the person probably thinks I'm a nut, heh heh.
There was no birth father listed. I find that interesting, because on my non-identifying info it says that they were too young, but planned on getting married. Not that I thought that would happen of course, but you would think his name would be on the record of live birth.
Too bad, because I think it would be so much easier to search for a male,simply because they don't often change their last name.
I've let the search idea slide yet again. I'm not sure why I haven't taken an active approach to this. It's already been 2 months since I first received this information.
Maybe I'm afraid of the final result a search could provide??

I didn't hesitate on finding my daughter's birth family halfway across the world. Yet, when mine lives possibly only an hour away something has me stuck.
Life is funny, isn't it!

The things that come out of my mouth

Never did I think I'd be saying to my kid "Do you really need to play cars naked"?
Avery is going through a little phase apparently, a need to be naked as much as possible phase.
Of course, Brennyn has to do everything big sister does, so she also must be naked.
I cringe if the doorbell rings in the evening around here. Consider yourselves warned!
I find clothes in every room of the house.
At least they are comfortable with themselves, right??

I was lending a hand to Blair, while he was high up on a ladder painting our house when I heard "ohh yes, it's so beauutifuul, posy, stylisssshhhhh, hugable, we look great". I'm thinking, what could my little darlings be up to.
Avery and Brennyn both are wearing high heel dress up shoes, Avery has a winter scarf wrapped around her neck (very dramatically I might add) and Avery is speaking into the microphone. It was an impromptu shoe fashion show, where Avery was the model, announcer, and boss/designer all in one. Brennyn followed Avery around, loving every second of it.
I wish I had taken a picture. I was laughing so hard I may have almost knocked the ladder down.
Those toy shoes have been in our house for over 2 years and Avery has never even looked twice at them.
All of the sudden I think she is becoming a fashionista, just like her mother (ha ha ha ha ha).

The weekend in pictures