An Array of Activities

March was busy with so many activities for everyone. Mary Alice made Beautiful Shamrock Shaped Cupcakes to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, which we all enjoyed.

We got this 3rd bike wheel from Kathy & Evan. Thanks guys!!! Megan really loves it. I did not think she would be ready to ride it yet, but she is doing fine.

Matthew and Cate went to a "charity ball" the other night and they looked so wonderful.

Iris' son, Brian, came for a visit from California and tried to make off with Megan Ling, but luckily we nabbed him in time. :)


then we went to church and Megan tried to capture one of the boys. We had to tell her that he was too young for such a commitment.......


She seemed to take it well.

We went to dinner at a friend's house and had a great time.

Eric has been working on a new stained glass window for our home. He is going to put it in the wall between our bedroom and an upstairs studio room that we have over our garage. He copied the design from the Tree of Life Window by Frank Lloyd Wright, drew it on the computer, scaled it to size, then cut, ground, wrapped and soldered all the glass, with lots of help from the kids. It contains 750 pieces of glass; the smallest are about 1/2 inch square. It is truly an amazing piece of art.

Over the winter, Eric completed this window, below, started by someone in our church who died before he finished it, and it was recently hung in the fellowship room at our church.

And these photos speak for themselves..........


Megan's first time to McDonald's

What a month!!

I felt her calling me from China

I couldn’t explain it more than that. People asked me “Why China? Why not a baby from around here?” I always answered, “Because my baby is Chinese”.

In our late 30’s, Eric and I were unsure about the size of our family. We had two biological kids, intense, intelligent, great kids, with fairly demanding needs for attention and support. However, we both felt the family seemed incomplete and we had a strong desire to share our many resources and advantages with another child. We began to try to become pregnant, but it did not feel like the “right thing”. After a while, recognizing my ambivalence, I gave away all of my maternity and infant things and assumed that I was not meant to have another child.

I was very surprised several weeks later, when I woke up one morning with the idea of adoption stuck in my head. I had not considered this consciously before, but it was probably something that was there always, deeply buried in a sea of everyday activity and it was only when I let go of my Preconceived Ideas, that I was able to hear my inner thoughts. I asked Eric what he thought and felt about adoption. Of course, being the very amazing man that he is, he was open to it. We agreed that I would do some research and read about it. I am fairly intense myself, and immediately read about 5 books in 4 days about adoption. Within a week I knew that my baby was in China. We selected Great Wall China Adoption as our agency and applied right away to adopt in April 2006. The process of gathering our documents went smoothly and we logged in with China in August 2006. The wait at that time for a baby was about 6-12 months, but quickly and steadily grew to become 18 months.

During this time Eric and I longed for our child, to know who and where she was. We were on the non-special needs track, and waiting for an infant. As the wait began to get to 12 months and more, I began to feel that our child was not an infant, but rather an older child and possibly one with special needs. This was confusing to me because every time I looked at the listing of waiting children, I felt tremendous anxiety and so just gave up looking at them.

During the summer of 2007 I received Great Wall’s invitation to the fall East Meets West conference, which was to take place in Tampa, Florida. I felt it was important that our family go to it. I guess I needed to be connected in some tangible way. My mother joined us as she lives nearby in Florida. We had a wonderful time and learned so much. Plus we met a family who had just been matched with their daughter, who was older and was diagnosed with a special medical need, called Hydrocephalus. I was struck with their description and photos of her; especially the fact that she was thrilled that she was being adopted and could not wait to meet her family. She was absolutely stunning and displayed a smile so full of life. Despite never having known much about Hydrocephalus before, I was so assured by her new mom’s matter of fact discussion about the available treatments and normalcy of life. It sounded like a very manageable condition to me.

After that, my mind was open in a way it wasn’t before. Still at the conference, I went to a session on “waiting children” and I was struck again that the speakers both agreed that the most difficult part of dealing with their adoptive children wasn’t their special need, but their adjustment because they were older. They described tantrums that were reminiscent of those my biological children had and I thought to myself; that I could handle. I knew that I would easily and intuitively be able to work through any attachment, bonding and behavior issues that may come up.

Shortly after that we had to renew our paperwork because it was coming up on 18 months. Our social worked did a home study update and I requested that she use language including both special and non-special needs children in her recommendation. Our previous HS had said birth-18 months, but I raised the question of extending the age range. I initially agreed to raise it to 2 years old, but after I got the final copy from my agency, I felt again a strong compulsion to raise it to 6 years old, and I trusted my instincts and called them immediately and asked them to change it. I picked up the revised copy later that day and felt such unexplainable relief. That was in early January 2008. Less than 3 weeks later, I found 3 ½ year old Megan Ling on the next Waiting Child list. I knew she was meant for me when I saw her, and she had the same special need diagnosis, Hydrocephalus, as the girl whose family I met in Tampa.

I immediately called Eric and told him about her, he was willing to trust my intuition again, and we applied to adopt her right away. Less than 5 months later, in May 2008, we met her in China and all my dreams about her were absolutely true. Interested readers can follow this link to see her on Gotcha Day. Although we were expecting and prepared to deal with her Hydrocephalus, amazingly, she was examined by a pediatric neurologist twice since coming home, and she demonstrates no symptoms of it whatsoever. This is an incredible and unexpected blessing.

Although very healthy physically and emotionally, Megan Ling did present with very significant learning needs and appeared to be functioning about two years below her age level. She had only developed minimal expressive language in China, even though she was almost four years old. She understood everything that was said to her, but simply could not form the sounds and motor movements to make words. She also did not seems to know any concepts such as number, color, shape, or what a book was all about, even in Chinese. She could, however, fold her clothes in perfect formation and make her bed without a wrinkle! She fell all the time when walking because she “slapped” her feet on the ground.

Upon arriving home, we immediately had her evaluated for all kinds of special education therapies and she has been receiving Speech, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Special Education Services (all free through the public school system) since September 2008. I just got home from registering her for Kindergarten in September 2009 and I am hopeful that she will be ready for a general education classroom with special education supports. She is so excited and cannot wait to “ride the bus”. She is still a little behind her age peers, but she is catching up more and more every day.

The most wonderful thing about adopting an older child to me, is watching her learn so rapidly. I am really amazed that we have been able to see her grow from an infant stage right through to the age she really is. It’s like I have had a child of all ages. I just responded to her as if she were born to me the day I received her into my life. Megan is compassionate, loving, and affectionate and soaks up everything we offer to her, and gives it back ten-fold. It was truly an amazing blessing in our lives to adopt her.

A New Bike!

March Update

I did not think I could get busier, but turns out, I could. Three kids with three sets of needs creates a busy mom. We are enjoying our various activities and obligations, and have our share of ups and downs. We were deeply saddened by the plane crash in NY last month and are close friends with a family that were directly affected. There is little that we can do, but reach out our arms and hold them and offer to help in whatever small way possible. It really grieves me to see them and the other families go through this tragedy, and of course, it makes me value my precious life all the more.

Megan Ling is developing so quickly. She has really turned from a toddler into a competent four year old. I came downstairs this morning to find her alone at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of granola that she poured herself (thank goodness she did not try to pour the gallon of milk). She looked so proud of herself and it made me smile. Of course, later she came to me and excitedly told me a story about Floor and Eat! and then Come! and she took me upstairs to show me an empty wrapper from a Ricola throat drop that she apparently found and swallowed in the 30 seconds that I did not have my eye on her!! Overall, she is much more reliable and trustworthy to know what is okay and what isn't, but she still has so much to learn! And apparently, so do I!

Her language has finally reached the level where she can communicate some simple stories and ideas without the people and the things present (apparently cough drop was not in her vocabulary-thus the Come, See! command). She told me that she wanted to have a play date with two of her friends from preschool, so I set it up for last Saturday. It was a busy and exciting morning, and Megan Ling was very pleased. The girls are nice role models for her and take care of her so well. They help her understand the basics of play. Unfortunately, I was so tuned into the supervision that I forgot to take a picture and will have to do it next time.

I have been learning about the options for Megan Ling for next year. She is turning 5 in July and thus is Kindergarten age. Our school district offers wonderful programming for children with special needs and Megan Ling will continue along this track for a while longer. She will qualifynext year as a child with Speech/Language Impairment and will probably attend a local public school with a self contained Kindergarten program; 15 students and 1 special ed teacher, geared towards kids with primarily language delays. Speech and OT push into the classroom to allow for a true team approach to instruction. Mainstreaming with age peers for lunch and specials is part of the program from the beginning and students are increasingly mainstreamed when ready. Even if Megan Ling spends two years at the Kindergarten level, I think this will be a great help to her. I made the mistake of telling her already about Kindergarten and the bus and she has asked me EVERY day about 10x a day about it in excited anticipation. "Megan Bus?" "not mama bus" "not Mary bus" not Matt-Matt bus" "just Megan bus" "Kah kah gah gah.......?" over and over. I can't get the idea of "next year" across..... well, you get the point. I am glad she is happy about it.

We have decided to try and call her Megan Ling, since she can now pronounce both and she has told me several times that she prefers this. It's hard to get used to, but I think it is very pretty sounding and I am happy to do it if it makes her happy. (her name was Ling Ling in China). We talk a lot about China, and one day she was looking at one of the photos she has of a nanny with her and some other children. She said "Ohhhh...Mama!" while pointing to her, and the way she said it, I knew she was not referring to me. I asked her if she called the woman Mama and she said "Yes!" then she asked me to "call Mama" and I said I did not know her number. This did not phase Megan Ling, she just said "Call online!" which is what she says when she wants to talk via skype with my mom and sister in law! I was floored by all of this, and have since asked some Chinese people, and other moms who adopted from the same orphange, and they have confirmed that the kids, in fact, did call their nannies Mama. I guess it means that as Megan Ling's language develops, she may be able to remember and tell us more things about her past. I want to honor any requests she makes the best I can, so if Megan Ling is what she wants, Megan Ling it is!

Matthew is doing well. He went to his first dance (with his girl friend) in February. The French Club dance called "La Boum". Apparently, it was a big success, as they are going to another dance, a "Charity Ball" in a few weeks. And yes, he is now taller than me....


Here they are having fun having their hair done by Megan Ling.


Cate has encouraged Matthew to try all kinds of new activities in school, including French Club, selling tickets for school events, writing for the Young Playwrighter's group, tongue twister contests and talking endlessly on the telephone. He participated in Science Olympiad regional finals last week and came home with a gold medal and 2 bronze. Also, we were pleased to learn that he earned a top score on a regional Math test, given at his college math program. Although he forgot to tell me this information, it was okay, as I read it in the quarterly newsletter that the program sends out. :)

Mary Alice and Grandma spent one day of vacation making a quilt together. Mary Alice did all the sewing. It is a beautiful piece of art and very cozy. Here is a picture and a slide show of it.

Here is one of the cats; being weird.

Inspired by the quilters, I made these pajamas for Megan.

This slide show is a collection of photos taken from Megan Ling, from her point of view. For some reason, it loops twice, but I don't have the time or patience to fix it and you can just press the stop button when you are done with it.





This is a video of the Chinese New Year Celebration we went to. It's very loud, you may want to turn the volume down :) Megan is visible about 1/2 way through on the left. The one in black that tries to help her is Mary Alice, but of course, Megan Ling will have none of it.... :)



This is Mary Alice's friend, Abby, playing the clarinet. Not her typical posture, but funny. She agreed to being blogged.....

And here, of course, is Megan Ling, trying to do what the big girls do.


Megan's "big dog" eating breakfast......

Grandpa & Iris

and a beautiful Orchid, given to me by one of my organizing clients.



All in all, a very busy 6 weeks. I cannot believe how time flies. I am falling behind on my vacuuming and bathrooms, but as my dear friend Michele says, it shows that I am focusing on the important things and nourishing the family's soul. Happy Spring.