Anything is Possible

I woke early this morning and lay in the quiet that happens before the house comes alive and I wondered about our new President, Barack Obama. I wondered if he too was awake and wondering how he was going to shoulder this amazing responsibility that he has taken upon himself. Was he nervous about what would happen this day and, more importantly, in the next four years? Every single day I wake up and feel the need to do all that I can to make sure that this little boy who we have taken into our care is safe, healthy, and able to pursue his dreams. But this man who we have elected is responsible for the safety and happiness of not just his own family but for millions of families around the globe. That’s a job that I am happy not to have. Only time will tell if he is able to accomplish what he hopes to make the world a more peaceful place and a country an even greater place to live in but watching the coverage on TV today, I saw so much hope for the future of our country in the faces of all of the spectators. And I saw actual living proof that this is a country of opportunity. That any person can accomplish their dreams no matter what their situation in life. I saw that hard work and tenacity are rewarded by opportunity. And I saw that my son, my own personal responsibility, has no limits to what he can accomplish in his life. And that is all I can wish for. A chance to become whatever it is that he decides that he ultimately wants to be. Our economy might be in the tank, worldwide view of the us not so favorable, but what a time for us to live. The possibilities are endless. Love to all -m (these photos are from the day before the inauguration)

Happy 2009 from an Ornery 2-year-old

Wow! It’s 2009 already. How did that happen? As predicted, we barely made it awake to see the ball drop and see the end of 2008. But we sure do have a lot of great memories from the year. In the recent past, we did our whirlwind tour of the midAtlantic for Christmas. We started out at my brother’s family’s house where the 2 year old in Rinat fully surfaced in the form of pushing his sweet cousin when she got too close to ‘his’ toys. That did not go over well with us. But we had a ton of fun while we were there- trips on the train to see the singing bears, the gigantic indoor 4 story high jungle gym (why do we not have one of those here?- and btw, it scared the bejeezus out of me), exploring the supercool children’s library, and just hanging out wrestling with his cousin. It was great. Next stop- LBurg. We got there a day before Christmas Eve to find out that the Santa gift had not arrived so of course Peter had to go shopping at the last minute and went totally overboard as usual. But I have to say that he did enjoy putting the train together during cocktail hour after Rin went to sleep and that’s half the fun anyway, right? And it was well received by our little conductor wannabe. He completely understood the Santa thing and knew exactly what to do when he got up. For my own sanity, and because I wanted to make sure everyone else was up before he came down, I told him Santa wasn’t finished delivering gifts until the sun came up so we hung out in bed for a while and waited for the sun. He kept asking “Santa come?” and so after hearing everyone already downstairs, we went creeping slowly down. He saw the huge display that the jolly guy had left and tiny cautious little smile took over his adorable face. It looked something like “Oh my gosh, look at that train- is it really all for me?” and looked at us for reassurance that it was true. It was kind of reminiscent of when we first saw him in the arms of his careworker at the baby house- Is it real? Can I believe it?- and I looked at Gulsanna to see if it was really true the way he looked to us for the same thing. There were, of course, a multitude of gifts and we could hardly fit them all in our car when we drove back to DC. For his 2nd birthday (Dec 26 for those who don’t know) we just made some cupcakes and he spent most of the day at our friend Tray’s house visiting with the menagerie that they have. It was a good day. But I can’t believe how quickly he is growing up. I know I say it every single time, but it is just flying by and it makes me a little sad. His speech in particular is sounding more and more grown up every day. Now, instead of calling the cat “BowBow” (MeowMeow), he has started calling him Massie and saying ‘meow’ like a big boy. And ‘water’ instead of ‘wawa’. What’s next? Oh yeah, we were at a party over Christmas and he heard everyone calling his Dada “Peter” and started calling him that recently. Boy is that kid observant. I sure hope he gets into a good preschool because I don’t know what else to teach him these days! Coming up in the near future is a cross country flight to visit Grandma Shay and Uncle Ted/ Aunt Liz so if anyone had foolproof tricks for dealing with a toddler who hates to be confined and has a penchant for shrieking at the top of his lungs when told No, please send them my way. Happy 2009 everyone! -m

HoHoHo Meddy Kissmiss

Good gosh, it’s been a whirlwind since last time I wrote. It all started with my friend Carson coming for a visit. She left her kids at home in Florida (a first) and spent the whole time playing grandma to Rinat. She brought a ton of gifts and every time I turned around, she was giving him candy and cookies. He of course adores her and still talks about the choochoo she gave him. After that came a visit from my friend Eileen. She, her husband, and two kids (ages 5 years and 20 months) stayed with us for a few days and the kids had fun just hanging out. And so did the grown ups. The next week we went out of town for the week and we went to not one but two Thanksgiving dinners in two different cities. Then a week off (but, sadly, I was sick and didn’t get to enjoy having time to relax). Then off to Richmond for my SIL’s graduation from nurse practitioner school. And now, of course, here we are at Christmas. Yikes! I feel like I have run a marathon. Rinat has taken things pretty much in stride except for the fact that he is no longer willing to let me sleep through the night when he is anyplace but tucked into his own little bed. He woke up at least 4 times a night when we were out of town with an all time high of 7 times in Richmond. Ugh. But, even being completely sleep deprived, we have had time to fit in lots of fun stuff along the way. We’ve had trip to the zoo (of course), the natural history museum, a first ride on the carousel, the Baltimore aquarium where he got his new fave animal ‘sea lion’ from Auntie Ann and is still talking about the dolphin show, cooked a Thanksgiving of our own here at our house with Ann and MattMatt, a ride on Santa’s train at the mall, a photo op on Santa’s lap, and, for me, a couple more preschool open houses. And speaking of Santa, I can’t even tell you how excited his is about ‘HoHoHo” coming. Did I mention that we wrote a letter to Santa a month or so ago asking for a train? Well he mentions it constantly. We got a dusting of snow about a week ago and Rin was so excited and he was saying “HoHo, Mama, HoHo!” Sadly, I had to tell him it’s not quite time for HoHo to come yet. I’m really amazed at how much he understands how it all works already. We went to visit Santa when we were in Richmond and I wasn’t really sure how it was going to go so I did a lot of preparing him and telling him what to expect. Well, he did great. He wasn’t a bit scared and just sat there on Santa’s lap like a big boy and let us take photos. I think he enjoyed the HoHo Bear that they gave him best and he still sleeps with it. I have been playing Christmas music a lot lately while we are hanging around the house and he has started trying to sing it. It started with “Fooootee Maaaan” (Frosty the Snowman) that he loves because we have a Frosty movie that he likes to watch. Then I realized that he was playing while singing “Saaadda Baaaybee” (Santa Baby). But my favorite is the “Dindle Bews, Dindle Bews” at the top of his lungs in the back seat of the car as we were driving home from getting fingerprinted at CIS today. Oh, and then there is the very annoying “HoHoHo Meddy Kissmiss” that he shrieks periodically while I am on the phone or trying to talk to the mailman. He’s definitely two and wanting as much attention as possible (being fawned over by family and friends constantly for the last month doesn’t help). He is quickly turning into the textbook two year old. His new phrase is ‘NatNat self’ because he wants to do everything himself. And oh boy the tantrums- he will stamp foot or fall onto the floor screaming when I say no. But I don’t have enough patience to put up with it so I just put him in the other room and tell him to let me know when he’s all done. And he actually does it- it’s amazing. He comes back once he’s no longer screaming and says “All done, Mama”. I mean, really. I never expected it to actually work. But he is mostly a really sweet boy. He loves his cars and lines them all up in a row, lies down on the floor and kicks his little legs, asks me to lie down next to him, and says “Oooo, neat!”- and then thanks me for all of them- “Dat do Mama choochoo, Dat do Mama pupul toe tuck, Dat do Mama white cah, Dat do Mama dump tuck…” I love it. Then he puts them in the little basket I gave him to carry them in and takes them off to line them up somewhere else. No matter how crazy he drives me sometimes, all he has to do is flash that little smile and I melt once again. What a sweetie. Well, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and bring in 2009 with a bang. I’m sure we’ll be in bed by 9:30 J -m

Cutest Mouse EVER!

Hi Everyone- I always tell myself that I will not let so much time pass without posting. So much happens that I want to document but I just don’t get to it somehow. So, again, this will be a long one. Forgive me and enjoy my random thoughts and declarations of adoration for our little one. So, right now, I am watching the Amazing Race on TV who is traveling to Almaty, Kazakhstan on this episode. It is so weird to see the babushkas, clothes and faces that remind me of the place that our boy comes from. I know it’s strange, but it makes me feel kind of homesick somehow. I also find myself looking around us wherever we are in DC for the same. Today at the zoo, I heard a man speaking Russian and immediately spun around so I could see if it was someone who looked like Rin or like any of the other people in KStan. And I looked at the faces of the people visiting the Kazakhstan horses there and wonder if they, too have a connection to that part of the world. That’s just another reason that I love DC- all of the different people with a connection to places all over the world. And it makes me even more anxious to get to Kaz again before to long. But more about what is going on with that at the end of this post. Let me start with our little mouse. He had an absolute blast on Halloween. The day before HDay, we had baked cupcakes to take to the park for a Halloween party there and so he was just about bouncing off the walls with excitement the next morning- he knew it was a special day and he was eager to get it started. He was absolutely terrible all morning but I can’t really blame him. It’s hard to wait when you are not quite 2 years old! And when he woke up from nap, he raced over to his little costume and started trying to put it on himself. He was totally into the whole idea of dressing up. He thought that the whiskers were absolutely the best part and keeps trying to get my to paint them on him again just for fun. He basically ran all of the way to the park saying “SQUEEK! SQUEEK!” while Peter and I ran behind him with the cupcakes trying to keep up with our little scampering mouse. We ended up trick-or-treating at a few of the houses on our block after the park and it was more than enough for a little tyke who didn’t really get it yet. Just wait until next year though- he’ll be unstoppable in his quest for candy. Although, I think our guy is a pretty good eater. I think it stems from the fact that I have him hooked on cooking. He carries around one of my pots with some dry pasta in it and ‘cooks’. He asks for specific things like the potato masher or the cupcake tin to make it a little more authentic. And he really does help me cook sometimes. When we made the Halloween cupcakes he counted out 2 eggs, helped stir the batter, put the papers in the cups, told me which ones needed more batter, told me when the timer went off, and helped put decorations on top. He gets so excited about it that he jumps up and down yelling “Cooking, Mama! Cooking!” I don’t think Peter likes the idea, but I really want to get him a kitchen for him to play in. But I am really enjoying not cooking on our ‘Take-out and a Movie” Friday nights. So far, we have watched the Wawa movie (Ice Age: The Meltdown), Gasgar (Madagasgar), Pumpkin movie (Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie), Cars, and Elmo Saves Christmas, and we have gotten takeout from Italian, Indian, Thai, Pizza, and Chinese. It’s my new favorite night of the week. Sweet Rinat is doing a ton of talking these days. I actually have people ask how old his is pretty often and comment that he’s a good talker. It definitely makes my life easier when he can tell me what he wants. Some of his new words are crocodile, shovel, wallet, hummus, heavy; and even better, he’s speaking in semi-sentences like “Bubby tayoh why” (Bunny’s tail is white), “Sitting NatNat” (Rin wants to sit here), “Dada soo bown” (Dada’s shoes are brown), and my fave “Dah duh Dada Mama” (can you guess what that one is:-)? Yes, he is really into naming the colors of everything these days too. I think he knows all of the main colors and I don’t know what he’s going to learn next. Peter and I have started applying to preschools for him next year and it is kind of sad and exciting at the same time. I can’t believe that it is already time for me to let him start leading his own life. Here in DC the process is insane. I think we are going to try and find 6 schools to apply to after going to open houses and we are hoping to get into one 2 days a week starting next September. I know I am going to bawl my head off when I drop him off for the first time. But that’s next year… And who knows what we’ll be doing by then. And this post really long already so I will give you a (relatively) quick sister update and then sign off. We started down the road in Feb and it has been crazy ever since- closings, slowdowns, policy changes, new agencies, and generally not knowing what was going to happen. I’m glad I was so naive the first time around or else I would have gone crazy- I just assumed that everything would work out (and it thankfully did). It was so easy last time and this adoption is so full of ups and downs. We don’t really have any idea how things will go but we are being told that it will be at least two years and we cannot be guaranteed a girl or a child under 1 year. It will get to a point that our papers will have been sitting over in Kaz long enough and they will tell them to send us to Kaz and get us a child or they will send it back. But we are almost done with the temporary dossier that our agency is requesting and then it is just a waiting game. We have to wait for the OK to get the real deal dossier done (apostiled & updated), and then we turn it into the consul and wait yet again for them to send it to Kaz, then wait again for them to assign us a region, and then again for a specific city and a date to travel. We will most definitely let you all know when we have any news. And, in the meantime, we will be enjoying the gorgeous cool weather that we have been having. Happy Fall! -m

Today's Excitement

Hi everyone! I was reading a magazine the other day and there was a quote from one of the Winnie the Pooh stories. In it, Piglet asked about the first thing that Pooh thought about each morning, to which Pooh replied “What's for breakfast?” He asked Piglet the same question and he replied “I wonder what's going to happen exciting today!” That’s exactly how my sweet pea seems to wake up each and every morning. It’s pretty infectious. And usually we do find something that is worthy of excitement. Sometimes it is a walk to the community gardens nearby where we find tomatoes, flowers, butterflies, peppers, squash, praying mantis, melons, a giant fig tree, and usually someone who is willing to share whatever it is that they are growing. Sometimes it’s a trip to the park to watch the kiddie baseball league. Sometimes it's class at Gymboree. Sometimes it is just a walk around to see what we can see- the city taking down a tree, a squirrel searching for nuts, or a friendly grandma type to give us much needed (yeah, right) attention. Well, today’s excitement was a trip to the pumpkin patch. I can’t believe that it was only a year ago that we took Rinat for the first time. He had no clue what was going on then. Well, this time, he absolutely got it. As we were eating breakfast, I was telling him where we were going to go and what we would see. He immediately told me he was all done with Bfast and “GO CAR!” as in NOW! When we finally did get him fed, clothed, packed up, and ready to go, he was standing at the door jumping up and down (sort of) saying “GO GO GO GO GO GO!” The longish drive didn’t bother him at all as he was busy making animal noises at the top of his lungs the whole time. And the patch definitely did not disappoint. There were pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, bunnies, and peacocks. There were multiple giant slides to go down. There was a rather scary hayride. There was music to dance to. And there were many many photo ops with the cutest child in the world. I know, I’m just a bit biased but tell me- you think he’s pretty adorable too don’t you? I know you do. Happy Fall and go pick out your pumpkins! -m

All Boy

Hi- I am not sure where it came from, but our little ‘NatNat’ (as he calls himself) is absolutely, 100% boy. He loves all things sports (OK, Peter has influenced him a little in that department). He has little plastic golf clubs and balls that he plays with 24-7. They are the first thing he goes for in the morning and the last thing he puts down at night- in the house, in the yard, and in the car. He also has a football that he loves and he carries it tucked into his arm as he dashes across the living room saying “Runnin’! Runnin’!” We even took him to a UVA football game which I think he enjoyed but didn’t really understand that we had to stay in one seat for 4 hours and couldn’t just crawl around wherever we wanted. To be honest, I think 4 hours in one seat is too long also. But it was still fun (well, maybe not so much for the people in front and behind us). And when football is on TV he watches intently until someone gets tackled and says “Uh-Oh! Uh-Oh, Mama! Boo-boo.” He cracks me up. But the one that took the cake the other day was when we went to the grocery store right next to a school where they were having soccer practice. He insisted that we walk over and watch them for a minute and he kept saying “Football, football!” and pointing to the field. When I corrected him and told him it was soccer and they kick the ball instead of running with the ball, he paused for a second and I could see his little face scrunch up in concentration, and he said “NatNat? Soccer? Kick it? Please?” He is sooooo cute. Have I mentioned how wonderful the internet is? Not only am I able to broadcast all of the adorable things that my little boy does, but I have also found it incredibly useful in trying to figure out what in the world to do about finding a sister for Rin. I joined several Yahoo groups to do some research and have, in the process, found a couple who we met in Almaty the day before they were off to meet their little one. I remembered them well because I felt so much sympathy for them since we had been in their shoes only 6 week before- terrified of the unknown- just like they were. It’s strange how you can run across someone anywhere now. The Yahoo group has also been really great for my sanity and I feel like I have finally found a group of people who can truly understand how exciting getting past each small step in the adoption process is and can offer guidance and support when I need it. It’s a lifesaver. And I have also, through Facebook, found some of my friends that I had when I was growing up and it has got me wondering who Rinat’s lifelong friends will be. One of the friends that I found was my best friend from the time I can remember until almost college and it has been really great to find out what she is up to and share some of the funny things that we did as kids. And I have found myself wondering who Rinat’s lifelong friends will be. Will they be the kids that we play with now? Someone he meets in school? Who knows, but I hope that he also finds someone who knows him through and through and can share all of those crazy childhood things like sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags, cooking s’mores over a campfire, spending hours and hours having Big Wheel races in the alley, running around the neighborhood like hooligans, going on vacations together, and having someone who feels like family- someone that truly understands what he’s about. I don’t wish for him a big house or fancy cars, I can only hope that he finds good friends to help him through the things that I can’t. And while we are on the subject of family, here’s a quick update on a sister. After researching every country that allows adoption, we are back to Kazakhstan. Yes, we are insane. We had considered Kyrgyzstan and Taiwan as alternates but my heart is in Kaz. I may come to regret it, but there we are. I waffled back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth). I have actually had our contract for two months and had not sent it in because I didn’t know what to do. I even put away all of the paperwork and took a break from it. But I decided to just rip off the bandaid and send in our contract so we hope to be moving forward with our dossier soon. I will, of course, keep you all in the loop. Cross your fingers for us because I think this time around is going to be a bit bumpier. But we have finally taken the next step. I hope that you too can soon rip off the bandaid of something you have been putting off. It’s really liberating! I feel a lot better about finally making a decision- whether it turns out to be the right one or not. Good luck! -m

WHHHHEEEEEE!!!

You all may have a Nintendo Wii at your house but we have a whole different kind of Wii. It is the new fort that we bought Rin for the anniversary of the day we met and he calls it The WHHHHHEEEEE! It’s really cute because he will go to the door and say “Mama, wheee! Mama, WHEEE!!!” when he wants to go outside and play on it. It has a sandbox which we loaded up with a digger truck and all kinds of shovels and buckets, a climbing wall, a ladder, a covered part, and a slide. He loves it and it has led to many a screaming meltdown when it’s time to say goodbye to the ‘whee’ and go inside. We also have had men working on our house lately and so he has become completely obsessed with tools- screwdrivers in particular. He likes to take a toy and turn off the power switch and then proclaim “Uh-oh, Mama, babbie” and try to use the screwdriver to take off the back and change the battery. He is always doing something that is so grown up and I can’t believe that he was a baby just one short year ago. I remember last September 8th when we got home from Kaz. Our first night home, after everyone had left and Rinat and Peter were asleep, I remember wandering around the house with just a feeling of finally being fulfilled. All was right in the world and our journey was finally over- not just the trip to Kaz but our journey that started years ago to make a family. And I still find myself, late at night, listening to the sound of quiet and thinking the same thing. All is right in the world- I have a wonderful husband, a whip of a son, and couldn’t be happier at what my life has turned into. I hope all is well in your world. -m