In case you wondered where your small child picked up their tantrum-throwing skills, apparently there is a training video available on YouTube:

I've been asked fairly often recently if we're "done" having and/or adopting kids. Sometimes I'm tempted to bring home a 1 or 2 year old little one in another adoption. Sometimes I'm NOT!

So asked Gennie when I told her we were going to go to the annual carnival at the elementary school last Friday night. It was very disappointing to Miss Genniebean when I had to explain that carnivals have nothing to do with cars, and that one shiny new car in a matter of a few weeks time was plenty (we recently replaced a 10-year-old car with a 4-year-old car, which was enough of an upgrade for us - our second car is still 10 years old, and we expect it'll just have to keep going for a while to come). Gennie got over her disappointment quickly when she got to the carnival, and realized that "carnival" meant candy and toys and games and bouncing around a lot. Of course, any parent who has ever taken a child to the elementary school carnival knows what these things are like. If I somehow am judged to be a really bad person after I die, a neverending elementary school carnival is where an avenging God will send me. There, I would stand in line for all eternity with a whiny child, waiting to throw beanbags into the clown's mouth for that coveted plastic parachute toy. Even though I dread the annual carnival, it was heaven for the girls, who ate their fill of pasta and cookies before cakewalking and bouncing in the giant inflatable castle thing ("No, honey, other kids are waiting, you really do need to come out NOW!"). There was face painting and lollipops and cheap plastic stuff everywhere. It was great. And there were lots of children having screaming fits as their sugar highs melted into overtired misery, which made me feel a little better when all my girls wanted was to go "do that game one more time, pleeease?" Nobody in my family had a tantrum, which I was very grateful for. Eleanor did sniffle and snuffle a bit on the way home, because, "Oh, Mom... they won't have the carnival again tomorrow. I'm sad!" Dave and I looked at each other, tried not to grin, and said, "Yeah, we know, sweetie. They only have the carnival once every year. It's a bummer, huh?" And after all, there are no shiny new cars at the carnival. They really should think about that for next year's event.

I hope my girls don't think I'm making fun of them, but I do love their unintentional plays on words and their childish mispronunciations. I loved the car-nival question, for instance. Gennie's are the best; Sarah goes to Wally-ball (volleyball) practice, and at the carnival Gen acquired some yummy willypops (lollipops). When told that Auntie lives near Berkeley, Gen guffawed and said, "Silly Mommy! She doesn't live in BURPY!" A sequel is not a second book or movie, but rather something that flies over your head at the beach. Eleanor's misses are fun at times too; although I expect they will decline quickly as she learns more language. Thirteen and fourteen do not really exist as separate entities for Eleanor, they all sort of blend into "firteen." She can't quite seem to manage "Pooh" rather than "Poop" when she sees a picture or movie featuring the cuddly bear, much to her sisters' amusement. "Grandma Barb" and "Granola Bar" are the same thing - she loves to eat Grandma Barbs. We have "happles" in our fruit bowl (too bad 'Enry 'Iggins ain't 'ere), and "snack" means anything that she wants to eat. Things she doesn't want to eat are not classified as snacks as far as Eleanor is concerned, and will argue that yogurt and bananas are "not a snack, Mom. I want candy."

It was a good night for Eleanor and Gennie tonight - they went straight to bed without a fuss, after I finished painting their toenails pink with sparkles. I'm afraid they'll only have twinkly toes in the house, though, since we had our first snowstorm of the season today. No more sandals! I expect Halloween will be cold as usual, and then all of a sudden we'll be into the winter holidays. Time is flying.

We had a social worker visit us last night for Eleanor's six month post-placement report. Yes, it's a little late in coming, because our homestudy agency said, "Gee, we didn't know you had traveled in March," which is completely ridiculous, since I had to call for an emergency addendum (that they hadn't completed on time, despite having months to do it) the weekend before we left for China. One would think they'd remember that incident, although I suppose it was a lot more meaningful to me than to them that we could have been stuck in Guangzhou indefinitely, without a visa for our child to come home. Fortunately, according to Heritage (and Heritage has always been great as an agency), the CCAA is flexible on report timing.
Anyway, I told Eleanor about the impending visit earlier in the day, so she'd know what was going on. I asked her whether she understood, and she said, "The lady is coming to see if I'm good." And I said, "No, sweetie, she's coming to see if you're happy and healthy and eating good things." Eleanor: "Oh. Mom, I want to eat more ice cream." Hmmm... hadn't heard of social services being involved in parent/child ice cream negotiations, but if anyone would try to push that envelope, it would be Eleanor.
Ice cream issue notwithstanding, all went well; three happy children attacked the social worker with joyous exclamations of, "Look at MY drawing! Look at MY toy!" So, I wasn't particularly worried about the visit - the kids were just thrilled to have a new person to show everything to, and the kids were clean, chubby, and smiley. Eleanor pulled out a photo album and made the social worker look at every single page, and showed the SW her Mandarin school materials. Sarah talked about volleyball, Genevieve proudly shared her My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop collection of small plastic animals. The SW happily proclaimed that Eleanor and the other girls are doing "incredibly, wonderfully well," and I smiled and nodded rather than saying, "Duh," which is what came to mind.
I tried not to think about the bad things that social workers sometimes see... while I understand the reasoning behind homestudies and post-placement visits, I don't like the reason they're needed. There are too many icky people out there. On the other hand, there's only so much anyone can find out in an hour; although I suppose the worst folks might be weeded out. Speaking of worst, I was driving home on Wednesday, listening to a silly radio show. That afternoon, people were asked to call in with reasons they admitted they were shallow (e.g. loving money or things, etc.) A woman called in and said quite plainly, "I want to adopt a baby from China, but if she's ugly, I don't want her. I'll hand her back." My jaw had already hit my lap, but then the radio host said, "Wow. But, they all pretty much look the same, so I guess you'll be handing her back, then, eh? Ha ha ha..." I quickly turned off the radio, my knuckles were white with rage on the steering wheel, and I tried not to grind my teeth on the way home. I hope this person never is allowed to adopt, and if she does adopt somehow, I wish the child had the chance to get rid of her new mother for being ugly in the worst way possible: on the inside. And the radio announcer was just an idiot. Grr. I was so glad none of the kids were in the car to hear anything so horrible.
Anyway, the clean house I created for the SW visit lasted the whole evening; today, the kids are back to their jobs as professional stuff-rearrangers. They are amazingly good at creating messes without any effort at all! Fortunately, they're really pretty good about cleaning up after themselves, with some reminding. Still, Eleanor vehemently denied that she had spread boogers on the wall by her bed, which I had spent some time scrubbing away. "It wasn't me. How did you know?" I'm recording it in a blog for posterity, either for overeager future boyfriends, or so she'll know I've been there, done that when she scrubs unpleasant things off of her children's walls someday. My own mother has freely informed me of my fingerpainting talents when I was very young; my own media choice was even more disgusting than boogers when I was 2 years old or so. Lovely.
It really is amazing that Eleanor has been home for six months. So much has changed in that time. She's grown by inches and pounds, and eats more than the other two kids put together. She speaks two languages nearly fluently (more English than Mandarin right now). Her smiles come much more easily, and her sense of security and ability to care for her own needs have improved greatly. She wants to please, she wants to be hugged, she wants attention (preferably all of it). She loves school in a big way, and does well. She's robustly beautiful, and I love her.
Not everything has been easy, and after the social worker left she prefaced a crying fit with "Mom, I don't want to go back to China!" She screamed for a good while, and I stayed, and comforted, and she drifted off to sleep after I convinced her that I wanted to stay here, with her, and nobody was going anywhere.
On the other hand, I left her to scream it out when she started up the next night, since she was upset that I wouldn't let her have her way about keeping the light on, staying up late, and eating treats right before bed. It's hard to know which kind of screaming she's doing sometimes - the genuinely hurt child scream, or the pushing-limits-want-my-own-way scream. And I realize they're not exclusive categories; I think sometimes she wants to control things because she has been hurt before, and the fight over whether she can sit in a certain chair, or eat a certain treat, or even have her hair brushed first (before her sisters) comes down to her having had to fight for everything before at the orphanage. I am getting tired of so many things being a battle of the wills; while things get steadily better as we try to be consistent about boundaries and rules and allowing her to have choices between reasonable options, the "I wants" still seem to rule the day. While her nature is basically sweet, she pushes as hard as she can push to control as much as she can. Someday she will realize that some things don't change no matter how many times she asks. Someday she will realize that we will be here no matter how much she screams. She'll realize she'll never be sent to China for somehow behaving badly, she'll know that her new home is where she can stay and be loved. She'll know what the social worker said - "You're a good family," and she'll know it in her heart of hearts.

Looks like I kind of missed September. Oh well, nobody reads this anyway. :)
Things have been busy, things have been better (mostly), and I keep forgetting to bring my camera to various events. A lot has been going on, hence the lack of posting!

The kids are all in school, and doing well. Eleanor is going to Chinese school every Sunday, too, for Mandarin and Chinese dance lessons. Sarah is in the city's youth volleyball program, with practices on Thursdays and Fridays, and games every Saturday. I've been thinking about enrolling Genevieve in gymnastics, but figure that we have enough going on (and she bounces with or without a trampoline). At least, we may wait until the volleyball season is over.

Here's Eleanor in dance class. She's the one having her ballet position adjusted by the teacher's assistant. I loved watching these little girls with their intense, concentrating little faces. Chinese girls in ballet outfits are about as cute as it gets, period.

I've been sitting in on Eleanor's Mandarin classes, too. It's been good for me, and there is NO way I could help her with her homework if I didn't go to class. It's taught in Mandarin, so I have to concentrate very hard just to understand what is going on. Fortunately, I catch every other word or so, and I'm learning more characters than I ever did. Still, her homework instructions are written in Mandarin, the CD-ROM she uses for character practice is all in Mandarin, and the teacher's aide speaks NO English at all. It's a challenge, but worth it. It's been SO good to see Eleanor speaking some Mandarin again; I know she has lost some of her ability (she told me yesterday that the new Chinese teacher says "blah blah blah blah really fast" and that she doesn't understand it all), but she's picking it up again quickly. I had to stifle a chuckle on the "blah blah" comment - I feel the same way most of the time in that classroom, it's sort of like listening to Charlie Brown's teacher, only in Chinese!

We have a parent-teacher conference coming up for Eleanor tomorrow; I've been a little peeved with how things have been going in 1st grade. I won't say a lot more until I have a chance to talk with her teacher, but it seems they have been assuming a lot about little Eleanor and her ability to understand things. I would be less peeved if they thought she COULD understand more than she does (and she understands 90% of what you say to her these days), but her right answers on worksheets have been termed "lucky guesses" (yes, "lucky guess" written right on her work!) and her math abilities have been ignored because "1st grade curriculum doesn't go that high." Well, if things don't go my way at the PT conference, and they don't give her some 2nd or 3rd grade math to do pronto, I can tell you who will be "going that high"... as in teachers kicked to the moon! The good news is that Eleanor is a smart cookie regardless, and she's READING in English AND Mandarin! I'm very proud of her.

It would seem that Sarah is a lot more coordinated at sports than I ever was. She is loving her youth volleyball league. She's #3 in the picture above, and she SCORED on this serve. And the next one, too. Parents are supposed to be supportive and positive in supporting both teams and all the kids (which is what I intellectually would want to do). Still, I do have this dark yearning to say, "Atta girl, Sarah! SMASH 'EM!" Naturally, I don't say that, and call out "Great job," or "Good try," or "Good rally!" with the other parents. If only they knew the real me, eh? I don't worry about Sarah's academics or her parent teacher conference - she has her nose in a book about as much as most graduate students I know. And her books are probably more interesting reading than the books graduate students read, too.

Gennie has been spending Fridays at home with me, which has been good for both of our dispositions. She's in Miss Marion's preschool class for the rest of the week, and very proud of her preschooler status (not with the little kids, Mom)! I'm usually dead on my feet by Friday, and ready for playing My Little Pony in her bunkbed blanket tent. I have to admit that I'm sometimes tempted to have Swirlypop the pony need to balance her checkbook, but resist the urge. Gen is growing up too fast. I want to snuggle her more before she gets too big, but realize that holding her close won't slow her down. I love that her favorite book is Peter Rabbit, and that she loves mermaids and the park and really big hugs.

As for me, I'm leaving work at work, except for the work I do at home when I come home from work. It's all work when you're a mom. I finished painting and moving the girls into their own rooms, and I'm working on creating an office in the basement (soon would be good - the bedroom/office is kind of crowded, and I get grumpy about the lack of my own space at times). I bought a Prius for commuting - yay gas savings! I'm sewing the girls' Halloween costumes with the sewing machine Dave and Jean bought me as a belated birthday gift. I'm pretty much ignoring the garden, figuring the snow will be here by month's end, but will do some pruning, the last of the veggie harvesting, and some bulb planting soon. We also have a social worker coming for our 6-month post placement visit next week, and it would be nice to present an illusion of order and cleanliness. Fat chance.

I'll try to post again sooner next time!