I'm pleased to announce that I am first author for a manuscript that is being published as a chapter in the Proceedings from Phonak's "Sound Foundation" annual conference. It has a distribution list of about 15,000 professionals, so I'm quite happy!
The paper is entitled: Clinical Applications of the P1 Central Auditory Evoked Potential, and I'll post a link to our lab's publication reprints section for those interested later on. (Geek alert!)
The best news of all: this weekend is TOTALLY free for a change, and I'm not burning the midnight oil tonight!

Now, I had fully expected to be an embarrassment to all three of my daughters at some point. I guess I had hoped it wouldn't start at 7 years of age, but apparently I am not wanted at school holiday functions by my newest daughter. Why? Because we look different from each other.
I pointed at my face and asked, "Do I have an extra eye on my forehead?" She laughed, and said, "No."
"Are my ears too big and floppy?"
"No."
"Do I have three noses?"
"No!"
"Well, it sounds like we pretty much look the same. My hair isn't as pretty as yours, and my eyes aren't brown, but I have a sister and a daddy with brown eyes. Maybe we're not so different, after all."
"Mmm..."
"And you know you have a friend in your class from China who has a mom who looks like me, too. Does her mom come to school?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I'm not going to hide, either. I'm afraid you're stuck with me. I'm your mom forever, and I'm going to come to your school until you don't go to school anymore. We'll always look a little different, but I'll always love you."
"I love you too, mommy."
"So... should I make a face when I come? Then I'll really look different... see?"
"Moommm! NO!"

I know it's not really me that she doesn't want to see. She just doesn't want to be looked at or to be asked lots of questions all the time. I get that, really I do. It's actually kind of ironic, since I'm struggling with trying to be the "good adoptive mommy" who is providing her Chinese daughter with all manner of things Chinese - today's e-mails included some messages to Chinese friends Lixin and Minxuan who are helping me find a Mandarin tutor to come to our home on a weeknight in lieu of all-day Sunday Chinese school.

I don't want my kid to be the one who grows up and writes articles like this for the local paper, detailing how many mistakes her adoptive parents made in not acknowledging her Asian-ness. "Yeah, my parents meant well, and seem like nice enough people, but ultimately they really screwed me up big time. Here's a list of everything they did wrong!"

After reading that, I asked David what he thought about moving to a more diverse neighborhood. He smiled, and said, "And that would be WHERE in Colorado? It's not like we have a huge Chinatown here." And he'd be right, there's a whole bunch of white people living in white snow here. There are also a lot of Hispanic folks, but far fewer Asians, and even fewer black people. Dave and I have talked about retiring to a city someday, so we could walk down the street for our groceries, and head to the local shows without having to go far. But ultimately, we enjoy the beauty of the less populous areas of Colorado, and the relative safety for our kids in being away from the worst gangs, drug issues, etc. that plague many big cities. I guess I want to live on Sesame Street, but I haven't found a place to live where children run around unsupervised with their muppet friends and the diverse figures of Gordon, Maria and Alan sit waiting on the brownstone steps, ready to sing the alphabet with my kids. I admit I've had a thing for Big Bird ever since reading Carol Spinney's book, The Wisdom of Big Bird and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch. After all, Big Bird was the first muppet to head to China, too...

In my ideal world, I'd have no problem with driving an hour each way on a Sunday to Chinese school, spending four hours there, and then part of every weeknight working on Chinese language and dance and culture. But realistically, I have two other children to consider, and I need time to do fun stuff with all of my kids. Evenings and weekends are what we have together when there's regular school and work, and we need to make the most of it. I'm completely willing to spend part of that time doing Chinese stuff. Not all of it, though.

And while I want to bring China home with us, so to speak, and let Eleanor feel secure in knowing that we love and respect her heritage, I want my kids to explore a LOT of cultures, not just China's.

After all - if Eleanor is worried about me being embarrassing, I really should tell her about my mom, who occasionally wore traiditional Ukrainian costumes around my friends when giving her folk art "egg lessons." (With the beribboned hat, poofy sleeves, and embroidered peasant collar). We're not even Ukrainian. She also warped my childhood with show tunes and musicals; I still can't drive by a cornfield without singing something from "Oklahoma."

I guess that if the worst that can be said for me is that I actually was PRESENT for my kids, and that was embarrassing - so be it. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I might even break into a showtune every so often in the presence of their teenaged friends someday. In fact, I plan on it.

I hope you all like the new look of the blog. I'm supposed to be working on a massive manuscript, but I had looked at the same long text for so many hours that my eyes were starting to have permanent images of the words "central auditory system plasticity" burned into the back of my retinas. If I'm going to have something burned into my retinas, I want something a little more jazzy than that! So, I decided to do something a little less brainwave-intensive for a while, and sharpened up the blog graphics.


This is a little bit of a spoiler, since I'll probably be sending this picture out with the Christmas cards I'm theoretically sending out in the next few days. But, the kids were so cute, I couldn't help it. The picture also made me realize how much Sarah and Gennie need their bangs trimmed! Oh well. Decorating for Christmas with Eleanor this year has been a lot of fun. One really nice thing about adopting an older child is how exciting each new thing is for them, and Christmas is a biggie. She is loving it all. Of course, the holidays also bring a certain element of kid-craziness; I thought it was only fair to include one of the many shots that WON'T be going into Christmas cards this year, just for a little acknowledgement of reality. (I bribed them for the good shots by letting them be completely goofy for others).





I'm also posting a picture of Eleanor's first big snow day. Sarah and Eleanor had a great snowball fight, and built forts and castles and such. Sarah likes having the opportunity to throw things at Eleanor that a) she won't get in trouble for and b) help her release some pent up frustration with the new sister who copies her every move and gets on her nerves rather often. Eleanor probably likes the opportunity to throw things at the big sister who gets to stay up later than she does and always seems to be right about what Mom will think about a particular issue. (Apparently, it's favoritism on my part to agree with Sarah that candy for dinner is a bad idea.) Anyway, all in all, snowball fights (given no hits in the face) are a win-win situation. And while Gennie was at preschool during this particular showdown, she loves throwing snowballs at anybody within range and then laughing evilly about it (she gets that from me). In her case, it's all about the snowballs. She's a snowball fight purist.

Eleanor has already had a big change in her eyeglasses prescription since coming home, and picked out a new pair of frames with a row of tiny pink sparkles on the rims. Nothing less for the princess (or is that the empress?)! Eleanor has been coming up with some interesting alternate histories for herself lately, some of which include living in the Emperor's palace at the Forbidden City. In this particular version of events, she also never had to clean up, could eat whatever she wanted to, and was never punished for anything. I can't fault her for trying, and she's really pretty good natured about it when I tell her she still has to do something ("Sorry, Eleanor, American mommies make their kids pick up their toys.") She has a momentary look of "Curses, foiled again," and gets on with things. And I'm rather glad to have one girl who doesn't mind a little sparkle and fluff every so often, although I'll never be a Barbie or a Disney princess fan. Sarah, on the other hand, wouldn't be caught dead in anything with pink sparkles. Blue sparkles, maybe, but not pink. Genevieve's tastes are, shall we say, eclectic. She likes wearing dress-up fairy wings with her snow boots, and perhaps a Darth Vader helmet or bright orange sun hat. To each their own. :)

Things have been insane. Good insane, but completely insane! I lost November somewhere along the way, but things have been going really well. Since I missed putting up Halloween pictures - here's one of the girls. I made the costumes, and I think they turned out pretty well! Eleanor thought Halloween was the best thing to happen in America so far. We dress up, have a parade at school, and go ask for candy at all our neighbors' houses. What could be better? She was one excited little pumpkin. And Genevieve was adorable and excited - telling everyone who would listen, "I'm a LEOPARD!" and "We're trick-or-treating!!" and "I LOVE your COSTUME! Spiderman is so cool!" (After which the Spiderman in question would strut down the street knowing he had little-girl groupies!) Thanksgiving was wonderful, in that Grandma Jean cooked the turkey this year. All I had to do was make mashed potatoes and green beans, which is a relief after hosting for some years now. Thanksgiving was pleasant and homey.

Now we're getting ready for Christmas, which is even crazier if that's possible. Eleanor thinks it's pretty weird that we're expecting this old guy with a beard to come down our chimney to bring us stuff, but - since stuff IS involved, she's game. This Jesus guy is apparently popular to have such a great birthday party every year. We've been watching the Muppet Christmas Carol and the classic Rudolph stop-motion films. All of this is pretty confusing for a first-timer.

In the meantime, I'm having some research published soon (yay!), but my manuscript is due sooner than I'd like.

And for BIG news - I'm going back to China next year! No - not for another adoption, but on a medical mission. I am joining a group of audiologists sponsored by Soaring Hope (http://www.soaringhope.org) that is heading to Liaoning province in June. Many of the folks going are associated with my department at CU Boulder. We will be provinding hearing services to somewhere between 340 and 400 kids in less than two weeks - testing hearing, fitting hearing aids, and most importantly - training teachers and caregivers who work with the kids every day so the cycle of care can continue. Eleanor is going to come with me, to visit her home country (and to make staying with the other two kids for two weeks on his own bearable for Dave), and Eleanor gets to be a helper, too - giving out goody bags to the children whom we will be serving. I'm hoping it will be a good experience for her.

I'm collecting unneeded but usable hearing aids to take with us - so if anybody reading has any to donate, please contact me! Also - Soaring Hope is non-profit, and any monetary donations to our mission are tax deductible. We need all we can muster in terms of support - especially financially. We're paying for our own travel expenses, so all money donated will go towards the children. There is a form for donation on the Soaring Hope website - just specify that the money is for the Audiology Mission 2008. Thanks!