MaMa

Bo said it just now.  Intentionally.  Standing in his playroom, calling for me to come pick him up.

I can feel my whole being wrapping itself around his fat little finger right now.

The Poem Returning as an Invisible Wren to the World

Once, there was a poem. No one read it & the poem
Grew wise. It grew wise & then it grew thin,
No one could see it perched on the woman's
Small shoulders as she went on working beside

The gray conveyer belt with the others.
No one saw the poem take the shape of a wren,
A wren you could look through like a window,
And see all the bitterness of the world

In the long line of shoulders & faces bending
Over the gleaming, machined parts that passed
Before them, the faces transformed by the grace
And ferocity of a wren, a wren you could look

Through, like a lens, to see them working there.
This is not about how she threw herself into the river,
For she didn't, nor is it about the way her breasts
Looked in moonlight, nor about moonlight at all.

This is about the surviving curve of the bridge
Where she listened to the river whispering to her,
When the wren flew off & left her there,
With the knowledge of it singing in her blood.

By which the wind avenges. By which the rain avenges.
By which even the limb of a dead tree leaning
Above the white, swirling mouth of an eddy
In the river that once ran beside the factory window

Where she once worked, shall be remembered
When the dead come back, & take their places
Beside her on the line, & the gray conveyor belt
Starts up with its raspy hum again. Like a heaven's.

Larry Levis

six things

...about my decision to start blogging again

1. I stopped blogging because, honestly, life got so crazy I didn't feel like I had time to sit down and write!
2. I even stopped reading blogs altogether.
3. I feel very torn about blogging, to tell the truth.
4. I want to maintain a sense of privacy for my children - not just for their physical safety, but because of a moral obligation I have as their mother.
5. That said, I do want to record some of our journey to becoming a family of five and some sweet little anecdotes so that I always remember the details.
6. Ultimately, I decided I need to blog because I miss writing.

coming soon

Japan

There is nothing I can say about Japan that someone else hasn't already said. Much more eloquently than I could.

I just saw on msnbc that the official death toll is now 11,000. Eleven. Thousand. I cannot wrap my head around it. Eleven thousand people who were here last week are not.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the survivors. And especially to those brave individuals working at the nuclear power plants. God bless you.

my birthday

So I am a little behind on blogging. My birthday was last month. I turned 36, in case you are wondering. Feeling very old, but I'll get into that some other time. Old, but happy. For now, pictures!

My birthday was the Friday before the Lion's birthday, so I brought Spider-Man cupcakes to his preschool. They were red velvet cupcakes. They turned all of the kids' teeth purple.


Since it was my birthday, Miss Heather whipped out their cardboard birthday cake and the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to me. It was very cute. Then we all sang to the Lion. And ate Spider-Man cupcakes.


That night we went to dinner at the Wazee Supper Club in Denver and had my favorite pizza. Jonathan's sister, Mary, and his mom were visiting, and I think Susan and I got a little tipsy over a pitcher of beer. She'll deny it, but I was there. I saw her rosy cheeks. I'm just telling it like it was.

Jonathan made me a tres leches cake. Here he is topping it with fresh raspberries:


Here's Lion admiring the raspberries:


And then, possibly my favorite part of the day. Sitting with Jonathan, sipping coffee, painfully full of delicious pizza and cake, feeling utterly happy and loved:


That was my birthday. I had a great day. So far, 36 is feeling pretty good!

visitors

Jonathan's mom (aka Susan) (aka Grammy) was here for two weeks.


We had a lovely visit with her. She got to volunteer at Lion's preschool several times. She went to Blue's Valentine's Day party and had lunch with her at school one day.


She was here for my birthday and Lion's birthday and even got to be here when one of Blue's teeth fell out! It is very hard being so far away from our family. I have lots of guilt over our decision to move here and take the children so far away from everyone. Visits like that help.

My mom comes out next. She'll be here next weekend. I can't wait to see her!

babies

I have been busy this weekend. Painting and cleaning and organizing. Maybe it is Spring cleaning. Maybe I am nesting. Little dude should be coming home in a few months now. We are getting his room ready and the rest of the house as well.

I went shopping while Susan was here and put together a little package to go over for his birthday. In exactly one month he will be one year old. It kills me that we won't be with him, giving him a taste of birthday cake, singing "Happy Birthday" and taking tons of pictures. I know he is being very well cared for by his foster mother, but it is still hard to wait. We sent him a birthday card, a little toy giraffe and a shirt that says "Little Brother" on it.

We still haven't chosen a name yet. There is one we both like and we are testing it out, saying it out loud, trying to decide if it is the one. We study his picture and try to see if the name suits him.

He is such a serious little guy. But we were watching old videos recently, and Blue was a very serious baby, too. I had forgotten that. She rarely smiled and only Jonathan could make her laugh out loud. She didn't want to be held much. She would squirm and try to get out of your arms. And she hated having her hands held! I do remember that! Little old ladies would try to touch her little hands and she would pull them away. She has always been so independent! I wonder what his personality will be like...

A friend of ours had her baby this week. A little baby boy named Davis. Davis has a congenital heart defect. He is doing really well, but it is still such a scary situation. I told Lion the baby was born and he said, "Well, I guess we can stop praying now!" like he was sick and tired of praying or something! But I told him the baby still needs lots of prayers. If you are reading this, could you spare a few prayers for Davis and his parents? They started a blog. Here's the link: Davis' Journey.

Grammies!

I just turned on the Grammys and 2 seconds later, the Avett brothers began performing! Yum.

I decided to watch the Grammys this year. I don't usually care about them at all, being more of an Academy Awards girl really, but I heard on the radio that Michael Buble is up for a Grammy for "Haven't Met You Yet." And that song makes me cry every single time I hear it. Makes me think of our little dude over in Korea. So I am watching on the off chance he performs the song and I can have a good cry.

I picture little dude when he is a teenager rolling his eyes in disgust because Michael Buble is so lame. And I will further embarrass him by telling him I loved him before I even met him...

Valentine's Day Cookies

I should be cleaning the house. Jonathan's mom is coming to visit for two weeks and she is flying in tonight. So I should be cleaning the house, right?

Instead I have been decorating cookies. I made 24 sugar cookie hearts for Lion's (first!) class Valentine's party tomorrow. His class is going to decorate them during the party. Then I made 24 more sugar cookie hearts for Blue's class Valentine's party tomorrow. Aren't they cute?


But now the kitchen is a mess.

sopapilla cheesecake

One of Jonathan's coworkers makes this all the time and it is just so damn delicious. I am going to bring it to the Superbowl party this weekend, because I have been craving some in a big way and that way I get to eat a little bit of it and share the rest and not eat the entire flippin' thing all by myself. Smart, no?

Anyway, go buy some crescent rolls and some cream cheese and whip up a batch for yourself.

You can thank me later.

2 (8 ounce) packages refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted
1/2 cup cinnamon sugar


Unroll one package of crescent rolls and flatten to cover the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan.
Mix together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and spread over the crescent rolls.
Unroll the other can of crescent rolls and spread over the cream cheese mixture.
Pour melted butter over the top and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

no, not quite...

I was getting my hair cut at Floyd's recently and I told the chick cutting my hair about the adoption. "We are adopting a baby boy from South Korea," I told her.

"Ohmygod!" she cried. "How cute! You're going to have a little Chinese baby!"

I just grinned at her and didn't say anything. Hilarious. I mean, what could I say?!

But it makes me wonder if Little Dude will go through life with people assuming he is Chinese. I asked a girl in my Psych class about it this week. She is from Laos and the professor asked her, "Are you Chinese? Korean? Well, do you celebrate Chinese New Year?"

I asked her about that a little later and she said, "Oh, yeah. Your son will definitely get that a lot. People always assume I am Chinese."

Something to think about. I have never had people assume I am anything. Except maybe Canadian. But that is because I talk a little funny, I think...

Settling in

I know we have lived in Colorado for over two years now, but right now, at this moment in time, I am really feeling settled here. This weekend I am going to a baby shower and then Sunday Jonathan and I got invited to a Super Bowl party! :) So I feel like we are really starting to make friends.

The Spring semester started last week. I am taking two classes again, but one of them is only one credit, and they are both meet only once a week, so I suddenly feel like I have so much time on my hands. Although it is a little difficult to stay focused when so much time goes by between classes... Maybe I will find time to blog again, though.

I am hearing a lot of banging and cackling upstairs so even though it is way past bedtime, I just don't have the heart to put an end to all of the fun!

Lion seems to be settling in, too. He is doing much better at preschool. It really surprised Jonathan and I how shy and reserved Lion is at school. He is such a goofball around us. But he is getting used to the routine more and more, and there is one teacher in particular, Miss Brooke, who he just loves. It is getting easier and easier to drop him off at preschool because I know he is actually enjoying himself.

Blue told me the other night she has a boyfriend. His name is Carter and they love each other. And then Carter told the whole class, even though Blue told him not to tell anybody. Then, last night when I was tucking her into bed, she told me that she cannot be Carter's girlfriend anymore.

"Why not?" I asked her, thinking That was fast! "Does he not love you anymore?"

"He still loves me and I still love him, but Shelby loved him first, and if she knew about us she would be mad, so that's why I cannot be Carter's girlfriend anymore."

I have no idea what I said because I was trying so hard not to burst out laughing. Who knew first grade was so much like an episode of Jersey Shore?

cough, cough

The Lion is sick.

I know this blog seems like a major downer since I started blogging again. And I am sorry about that. Because we have definitely had our share of good times and laughter. And I am not depressed. But the truth is, Lion is sick. Just keeping it real.

It has been crazy, unseasonably warm in Colorado this winter. More like one long autumn rather than a true winter. Which has been awesome for Lion. He has asthma that gets aggravated every winter. It is breathing in the cold air that irritates his airway. And then the coughing begins. The coughing, the sleepless nights, the blue lips that scare the shit out of me. All that.

Well, like I said, it has been warm this year. So no cough! And I have been crossing my fingers and holding my breath and feeling so very, very relieved. Until yesterday.

This past week it got cold. Like ridiculously cold. It finally snowed! We got excited and then on New Year's Eve we took the kids sledding in City Park. It was fun, but it was so cold. I worried, like an obnoxious stick-in-the-mud mother. I only went down the hill once myself, because my own cough was finally getting better and I didn't want the trek up the hill, breathing in all that cold air, to bring my cough back. And I worried about the Lion. About all that cold air bringing on his cough.

I was proud of my little man, though. He went sledding (really sledding) for the very first time! And he loved it! So that was a big deal, and Jonathan and I were very annoyed with ourselves for not bringing the camera.

But yesterday the coughing began. And the Lion lost his voice. He basically camped out on the couch all day, watching Billy the Exterminator and telling me, in his little barely-there voice, that his throat hurt. And that alligators sometimes have up to 60 teeth.


So we gave him some medicine and Jonathan got the humidifier all set up in the Lion's room last night. And if he does not drastically improve by tomorrow, it looks like we will be heading to the doctor.

being thankful

I am looking forward to 2011. If all goes according to plan, we will welcome our little man home this summer! And also, I am supposed to finally start nursing school full time this fall. That will depend on when little man arrives, so we'll see. And then also this spring, Andy and Teresa will make their rescheduled visit to Colorado.

So. I have many things to look forward to. And so many things to be thankful for. Before I make any resolutions, any promises for the future, I want to reflect on the things in my life that are just perfect. Like my husband. My children. My family back home. The weather and scenery of Colorado. Having a warm home and enough food. Being healthy. Knock on wood, right?

We took the kids to the Wazee Supper Club for some pizza last night. It was so bitterly cold. And on the way to the restaurant, as the kids and I raced to get inside the warmth and yummy smells, we passed a homeless man. It breaks your heart. Literally hurts to see a person who has so little he can carry it in a shopping bag. To feel the freezing cold wind on your face and know that you are about to be warm and well-fed while someone right next to you isn't so lucky.