Summer days

Our town won a free President's Choice Community BBQ (Nationwide grocery brand of products). Great time and great event. The kids had so much fun and of course got their faces painted. The lady spent such a long time painting Avery's lion. That was the highlight of the day (even with all the free food, stilt walkers and fire thrower).

Summer fun

Both girls are loving the bike riding. Avery is now a 2 wheel maniac, and Brennyn has finally mastered her bike.

Had another day of fun at The Rainforest Cafe in Toronto, this time with Daddy.

Phew

Got the call from the Doctor, he is happy with the CT results. There is something showing and I quote "yes, there are some funny things in there". Have to love the medical terms, lol.

Basically, I have some scarring on my liver and spleen which looks to have been caused by some sort of infection I had once upon a time (he did use a long medical term for that, but it went in one ear and out the other).
Could have been the mono I had as a young college student or the infection that landed me in the hospital for a week when I was 6 or 7 (details are hazy on that one, I just remember waking up one night in a lot of pain and my mom rushed me to the doctor who in turn sent me to the hospital with some sort of strep virus). You don't realize the long lasting damage these little infections can cause!

Anyway, long story short, he will see me in a year just to reassess but he is not worried. Therefore, I am not worried! It would be different if I was in pain or something, but I feel all good.

Had a little surprise in store for the girls yesterday. We were in The Big City for Brennyn's psych. appt. which happens to be about 10 minutes from a very large, well known tourist mall (not the Eaton Centre).

We had a late lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, and they loved it! They couldn't stop looking around at all the neat animals and fish (the fish were real). I assumed that the food would be your typical "tourist, theme" restaurant food. That was my surprise, the food was great. I would not hesitate to go there again.

To add more fun, a girl (probably about 9) ran up to the kids and gave them some balloons. I think that may have been the highlight of the whole day, even for Avery who tries to act a lot older than she is.

It was a great adventure, and now the girls can't wait to take their Dad there too!

Good news on the health front

Saw the Specialist this morning, had an appointment to meet with him at the ER. My husband met me there, since he was working today anyway (he likes to hang out at the hopsital, lol). Nothing like sitting in the trauma center with your paramdic hubby waiting to see a DR. Luckily, this is a small town and the trauma room was a ghost town. The ER itself was busy as always, I personally try to stay as far away as possible from the hospital, but that's just me.

Anywho, everything looks okay so far. I have a CT scan booked for next week and that will be the final factor. I do have some funky cysts in funny places, but the good DR. says some people are just lucky like that. These cysts don't mean anything, but he wants to double check, hence the CT.

Once again, my diagnosis is UNKNOWN. Let's see, I have unknown infertility, unknown low platelet counts and finally now unknown reason for my night sweats. I'll take the unknown over having something known and very serious (which is what they were looking into)!

Trailer Life

Lounging around in the hot summer sun! Mom's chair is especially comfortable (technically it's Grandpa's chair, but he never sits still long enough to use it, ha ha).

Avery found a new little friend.

Let me just start by saying, it's never good news when your family doctor personally calls you. Not that it's really bad news either, but you know something is going on.

I was due to have an appt. in a few days to discuss my latest round of ultrasounds (I can't count the number of ultrasounds I have had over the years for fertility related testing, low platelets, fun little polyps and fibroids, etc.

This time the ultrasound was to see if my doc. could find a reason for my occasional night sweats and chronic low platelet counts.
Suddenly, I am off to see an internest and have a CT scan done (never had one of those before).

I am nervous this time around, really nervous. I've seen an oncologist, or two in the past (for the low platelets) but they have always dismissed the low platelets and sent me on my way.

Well, it looks like my spleen has decided to grow some nodules, and I may have some sort of infection. Who knows how long these lovely little nodules have been taking up residence on my spleen.

I guess one way of looking at this, is that I wasn't imagining the night sweats and I certainly was not wasting my Dr.'s time (she would never ever think that, but I always do).

Did I mention that I was nervous??

So, my 6 year old is going on 15

Avery says "Mom are you on that facebook again". Yes, Avery, guilty as charged.
"you should be on Twitter, everyone is on Twitter except you".

Umm, how does my 6 year old even know what Twitter is?? I guess she has already surpassed me in her knowledge of technology. I knew it would happen, but not so soon, ha ha ha.

Avery is also very excited that her picture was in the local paper. It's a group shot of her soccer camp kids in action. Apparently, the picture was taken 2 days ago, but Avery failed to mention that someone was snapping photos of the kids (when I asked her about it, she said "oh yeah, a reporter took our picture the other day).

She screamed when she saw her picture "I'm finally famous"!

Just finished reading The Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. I had given the book to my mom for Mother's Day and she loved it (and insisted I read it).

Such an emotional book, I suggest anyone who is an adoptive parent (especially international adoption) should read this book. The book is about India, but it could just as easily be China (the circumstances are very familiar).

I read this book and am reminded again that I am not only an adoptive parent, but also an adoptee. I know, it's not like I forget that fact but I also do not have time to dwell on it. I am a mother to 2 very busy children and lately I have been focused on their needs and their stories.

This is very hard to explain, and I have never been great with words. Sometimes I don't feel like an adoptee (okay, most of the time). It doesn't define who I am. I am just another person in this world. I feel so lucky to have 2 great parents, who are always there for me (and truth be told, my Dad totally spoiled me). Yet, after reading a book like this, I start to think about my birth family again.
It's the wondering, what do they look like? Do they look like me? Do they ever think of me?
Do I have half siblings and how old are they? This is the question that I am the most curious about suddenly? Perhaps I feel this burning curiosity because we have found Avery's birth family and she has many siblings and even some nieces and nephews (Avery is only a few years older than her oldest niece, kind of hard to wrap your head around that).

The lines start to become blurry to me. Avery and I were talking about her cousin (my brother's son) who lives way out in the Canadian East Coast. We haven't seen him in 2 years and I was saying that I feel a little sad about that. I feel sad that my girls only have one cousin. Avery pipes up and says, mom I have lots of cousins in China! I started to explain the difference between those cousins and her cousin in Canada and realized maybe there is no difference. Is a cousin not a cousin no matter how the family is formed?
Of course we are her family, but she also has another family who live thousands of miles away.

Yet, I don't feel the same way about my own birth family? I have always felt that I have one family. Would I feel differently if I met them?

Soccer Monster

Avery has started her first ever soccer camp this week. It's a new camp put on by a British Soccer organization, the coaches are from Scotland, Ireland and England. Great job for a young adult, spend your summer travelling all across North America (they usually stay 2 weeks in each town).
The young man coaching Avery is from Ireland and this is his first time in Canada. Poor guy is stuck with the 4-6 year olds (he must be the new guy). Avery is loving the camp (it's from 9-12 every morning. The bigger kids have the option of going all day. Personally, I can't imagine playing soccer all day, but I'm obviously not the soccer fan in this family.
I kind of wish we signed Avery up for the 2 weeks instead of just 1! She is a soccer monster.

The above picture is how Avery looks everytime she plays a sport (this pic is from her Wednesday night games). This girl is serious, she needs to concentrate (heaven forbid you wave at her while she is playing, but I do it all the time anyway).

Ugh

I just dropped my ipod on my ceramic kitchen floor. You can imagine the result, not good. I think I may be the klutziest person around.
I use my ipod for running, had an awesome ap from Nike for keeping track of my distance, time etc. Not to mention it has all my music too.
Took me two years to finally buy the first one (just bought 6 months ago) so a new ipod really is not in the budget. UGHHHHHHHHHHH!

EDIT: Have to write this down. Both my children offered me all the money in their piggy banks to buy a new ipod. Didn't have the heart to tell them that $25 doesn't quite cover the cost.
Makes the burn of breaking it a little less intense! My sweet girls.

A few weeks worth of pictures

We always have birthday pancakes

Daddy and his girls (in his paramedic dress uniform)

Birthday fun with Grandpa. Brennyn picked out her cake, much to her sister's dismay (Avery wanted the spiderman cake).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Happy Birthday to my brave, funny, sweet little girl. We love you so very much!

You have gone through so much in 5 short years, more than most people will in a lifetime but you always have a smile on your beautiful face.