MR... I am not able.

I've always thought OHSU was pretty, but approaching it today it looked overwhelming.
The feeling was remarkably similar to audition anxiety without the excitement or pretty music.

Today was awful. FangFang was a champ and everything went well. She was sedated with gas initially and didn’t even have to have a needle stick while conscious, which was a big help.

But it was still awful.

A kid in the next room started crying one second before this picture.
This is her "Um, no." face.

As soon as her body stopped squirming and her brief crying silenced under the little teardrop-shaped mask, I was told to come back in an hour. I walked out into the hallway and realized I was about to completely lose control of my emotions. It felt like nausea of the psyche. It sucked.

I headed for a stairwell and walked away from any voices. I wasn’t aware where I was in the massive OHSU industrial complex or what direction I took, so I was thankful I ended up taking the most direct route possible out of the building. The perfect fall Portland air felt like a solid object and I could not suck enough in. I was actually worried somebody would see or hear me freaking out and make me submit to a “what the haystack is your problem” exam. I remember worrying how much that might add toward our deductible and whether it would make me late for her waking up.

Breathing in and out seemed to do the trick, and my moment of panicked humiliation eventually ended.

I think two things caused it. One, and this may be a bit of a fruit-loop idea, but it was as if my body was convinced it had watched Primrose die. Like if you are watching some crappy movie with too much hand-held camera and it makes you motion-sick even though you know it’s not real, or if the sight of blood makes you faint even though you aren’t frightened. The thought of losing her was so terrifying, I know now there is nothing left for me to hold back in terms of bonding, clinging, investing, wrapping up in her. 

Two, I am like a huge outdated left-on video-phone walking through that stupid place filling up with images until I can no longer function. The people I see stick with me. There was a family there. The mom was missing a large part of her face (cancer?) and she and another daughter were there with a young son who was waking from sedation. In the waiting area I overheard as another mom was told the MRI of her daughter’s brain went well and they would soon have more information about her cancer. This second part, the continually shocked over-sensitive part, I am ashamed of. It proves that I allow myself to live in denial that these things overtake people’s lives on a regular basis. Why do I get to assume that luxury? I am sorry about that.

Imagining any of those things happening to our family points out the limits of my faith as surely as a flashlight in a cavern. (A weak flashlight, a cramped cavern.) And worse, after today I confess that I truly, strongly hope that those limits are not forced to expand despite all those other times I nobly prayed they would. People are tested, broken, ground into dust. So many we’ve known still display their faith in a God of grace. Thank God for that, and for them.

We should have results from the MRI tomorrow, and then I need to sign the consents to send them along to the specialist in Cincinnati. Those are the kind of tasks I can handle. 

Spleeeeet!

Isaac has been dancing a lot lately. It is spectacular.

We are humming along, rolling, tripping, falling into rhythms. Every day ends with me surprised how much we stuffed into it, and a list of things leftover nagging me to stay up to the wee hours getting a few things done and procrastinating many more.

Primrose and Isaac, the personality twins, wake up at about the same time in the morning. Sometimes Toby joins them and he’s tall enough to lift her out of her crib while J and I get ready and start breakfast. She wakes up so happy it's ridiculous. It's a Rockwell painting all up in here for the first 5 or maybe 6 minutes of every day.

Footed pajamas, eldest brother reading. A wholesome start to any day.

Tomorrow we have her MRI and (hopefully last for a while) blood draw. She’ll be sedated and it’s supposed to take about four hours from check-in to release. I'm trying to keep my hands open and unclenched, to follow wherever God's going with this thing. Being grateful and also worried is a sour mix, hard to sustain. 

She did this "All Socks Are My Puppets (TM)" move in the front row of the Eugene Symphony kid's concert.
It was entertaining. I especially liked when she clapped enthusiastically for us with one ensocked hand.

I am looking forward to the day after the results from the tests, the day everything relaxes and goes back to getting back at it. I painted my nails (almost never do the fingernails because it feels weird when I play) all sparkly tonight and then realized that's what I had done the day before she met us at the Children's Welfare Institute. She may be doomed to go through life with a strange aversion to tacky nail polish. I am throwing away the bottle if it's a bad day. 

Still a fan of balloons. Well played, spaghetti factory balloon animal guy!

The last few weeks haven't been pretty. I had a disgusting case of pink eye which led to an infected cornea. I missed a symphony concert. It was a bummer. It feels better now, but I think it takes me longer lately to get back into our schedule whenever something pushes us off it. It's either a 3-kid thing or a 40-something thing. I think it's high time I re-read Getting Things Done or Letting Things Go or Drinking Wine for Fun and Profit.

Some folks on a homeschooling forum I read were responding to a mom asking about adoption from China and I found reading the thread depressing. One of the respondents in particular warned her to be wary of any blog saying everything is "wonderful" in their family after adoption. I know we are still so new to this, and we truly were prepared for harder things, but it stung a bit to feel like our experience still doesn't count in the spectrum. I hope the person who posted the thread wasn't discouraged. 

Isaac has figured out how to climb poles over concrete.
I told him not to climb higher than my head.
Our insurance company doesn't read this blog thing, right?

Thankfully one of her super-powers is not massive upper body strength.

We are not making this up, exaggerating or leaving out a bunch of bad stuff, though part of me still waits for the other shoe to drop. Maybe there is a hidden medical need. Maybe she'll display Radical Attachment Disorder or she'll be a terror and hate us when she's grown. Maybe she'll hate adoption and fight against people being allowed to do it. Maybe she'll wear fringed jeans jackets and play electric piccolo in a new country band (sorry, that was harsh but I have to go there, after all these are our darkest fears. Spleeeee-eeeeeet!).

Right now, from my blissfully unqualified position, I believe it will not matter if any or all of those things happen. Crap, I am tearing up realizing and writing this. Don't worry- the tears are no longer contagious. It's so sappy. I have drunk all the koolaids because this whole thing including the years of waiting and the financial sacrifice is just so worth it. 'Worth it' isn't even in the right universe. 

So tomorrow we tackle the MRI. I'm just going with banking on her forgetting the whole thing.

MWAH!

Dollhouse Score!

Subtitle of truth: I have a girl now!
Subtitle of truth part two: Isaac wins for kid most excited about this project, so what was I waiting for, anyway?

I have decided I am indeed the kind of person who would make a dollhouse including tiny funky things to go inside. It will be fun to make little versions of the things I'd like to put in an actual house. A good placeholder project is helpful when you're trying to be patient.

We stopped by the "Dig 'n Save" Goodwill. This place is not for the faint of heart. They put the goods out in barely-sorted industrial bins and it's all sold by the pound. When they roll out a new bin, people flock in like carrion animals. We ignore the bins, or more accurately I forbid the boys to touch anything fabric there and we even ignore the (vaguely smelly) books. Despite my germophobic tendencies, we have found several bookcases and kid's toys there and it's always a steal. We stick to things that can be Clorox wiped. I thought of a trip out there as soon as I realized I want a dollhouse to fancy up.

As seems to happen when your standards are low, we found exactly what we wanted! A big huge garish KidKraft dollhouse complete with real moving elevator. In its current condition it looks like a fire station, but I plan to wallpaper the guts out of it. It was a grand total of $5 and sells new for about $175 at Costco, so it's no great loss if we fail to get it going.

We also got a ride-in car thing and a small sized red trike in great condition. The total bill was $23. I told you it was a steal. Dig 'n Save, we love you and your smelly truly flea-bitten self.

If we get anywhere with re-decorating it and making cool things, we will post here! Leave a comment if you have ideas, or tell me on facebook. I'm not a fan of super fru-fru things, but I like stuff that looks old. I love artsy things and since Primrose loves paintings I think we'll put in a mini gallery on the top floor. Imagine a rotating collection of tiny versions of famous works in varying styles as we study them in homeschool. Groovy, if it actually happens, right?

$23!
(Kids and library books not included.)

The Days Are Just Packed (apologies to Watterson)

How quickly do kids recover from awful days?

Really really quickly.

After that nasty morning, she napped a bit and then was bundled into the car to go to Toby's piano lesson. She adores the piano and wants to do whatever the boys are doing. This makes it nearly impossible to keep her away from it during the lesson, and she does these insane little dances behind the upright's soundboard. She's a noisy clapping distraction machine for most of the lesson. I keep hoping it will end up being good for Toby to learn to focus through it anyway. Thank goodness his teacher is so patient.

In this game, I pretended to tickle her at each chair. 

On the way home from the lesson, she uncharacteristically fell asleep again. It gave me time to snap my new favorite pictures.

Tucking her head into my neck is one of the best things all day.
Maybe all year.

After that we took her to meet her daddy's parents, in town from Montana. An excellent judge of character with a keen eye for kindred spirits, she of course took to them immediately.

Who doesn't love a cup of ranch dressing shared with a toddler who likes to eat with her fingers? 

We've decided to try to convince the pediatrician to modify the test orders so they can take the rest of their pint of blood when she's already sedated for the MRI. There are definitely benefits to having a fantastic doctor for a Grandpa. Like every night for the past few weeks, she went to bed with a smile on her face after collecting her kisses. That's another thing it would be great to have rub off on me. Good night!

What are you people thinking?!

The medical fun continues.

How about a popular parenting topic for a change: waste management (change! the puns are killing you, right?). I've never really had a problem changing diapers. Poor J will do it without ever complaining, but he has a much more finely developed gag reflex and it tends to fire on him when a diaper's particularly pungent. That has yet to happen to me. Until now.

I'll just come out and tell you; we have to fill 7 vials and 6 paper smearing thingies with fecal samples. It's as awful as it sounds. It seems to take forever and I feel like bleaching the world when I'm done. There is a chasm of difference between folding up a diaper and immediately sealing it away in the diaper genie in the garage vs. performing this vile (vile vial!) task in order to allow the medical community to do their duty. And that's all I better say about that.

The other task at hand is the endless blood letting. With checking vaccine titers and infectious disease tests, there are about 15 things that require around eight vials of blood. We learned today that her veins are "tiny" and are not disposed to giving up the goods. Duh, of course they aren't.

She screamed and struggled the entire time, working herself and me into a sweat. The phlebotomist chastised me a bit for allowing her shoulder to move (seriously!) even though I was holding it so tight I was afraid it would bruise and part of my hand fell completely asleep from the pressure. I'm going to ask them to do it with her laying down next time rather than in my lap. When the flow slowed and stopped, they had to do the other arm. Then that stopped, too. The plan had been to get most of it today and then a smaller amount, but instead we're in for the same kind of party tomorrow.

Before.

After. You can't tell, but even her hair was soaked.

She recovered quickly, though afterward she pointed several times to her inner elbow with a "what the heck?" expression on her face. "Mom, what is WITH those people?" she'd like to know. She fell asleep in the car on the way home, about an hour before her usual nap. I don't blame her.

She's such a clear communicator, she must think we're all a little dense relying on these silly words all the time. I wish we could explain more about this strange world to her in a way she could understand right now. The other day at Red Robin she was entirely freaked out by a person-sized Statue of Liberty in the lobby entrance. After standing in the same spot for five minutes, she suddenly started clawing up me, and sort of quietly screaming "Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!" Once we were seated and eating, she kept pointing over toward it and babbling questions our way, tilting her head and scrunching her eyebrows a little. I tried touching the statue's nose, tapping on the metal and explaining it was a toy. None of it was convincing her this creepy thing belonged near vulnerable unarmed humans.

She's right: it is a creepy statue.

We'll have to keep just confusing her with our weird world. Can't wait to hear what she thinks of all this when she's old enough to understand us better. I've always loved the chatty stages. This morning, Isaac was curious about whether I had ever been in the Ballet or if I was perhaps breaking a rule by using the Ballet Parking at the Children's Hospital. He also announced to the phlebotomist, "I'm here to comfort her when you start in with the needles." Ha.

Climbing, hugging, mothering: she's kind of a big deal.

Our days have been packed with all kinds of normal. I know it probably seems like we are hamming up life in this blog and facebook, but truly, it is amazing what we see each day. Hugs between siblings. Doors held open. Gifts of the most precious commodities (Pokemon Cards and the last bite of anything) offered freely.

Despite all this, by evening just about every evening, I am crispy around the edges. I want space to myself and time to browse through my thoughts instead of grasping at thinking anything in any way independent of my function as a mom. The contents of our refrigerator feel like a dinner-making exam, and I don't know the material. Poor Isaac's happy and incessant chatting from the backseat in downtown traffic makes me crazy and I have to ask him to look out the window instead. I'm weary of insignificant tasks burying me in piles of hours. What I need to do is get back on the treadmill more often, because that is where my own personal cleaned out headspace happens best.

Primrose and I both loved Sushi out tonight.
I didn't have to cook and she got to eat
raw fish eggs. Win win!

Our Primrose loves herself some parks and in particular the slides. Today I watched her figure out how to climb a metal and rope ladder designed for older kids to get to a very nice shiny silver one at the Fields Neighborhood Park. One thing Portland does well is adventuresome simple gorgeous parks. We played in the sun among the tasteful plantings and chic modern brushed aluminum fencing between the millionaire flats and the industrial district, watching an impossibly huge red crane constructing a building across the street. I actually didn't notice the crane (easily 100 feet tall) until FangFang pointed it out to me. Do other moms notice they often don't really see a place because they're so busy looking down at tiny humans and counting heads? The boys found another red-headed boy to fly with them on a metal hammock swing, and Isaac finally made it over a tall web of rope he has been trying to conquer for several years.

She can have all my money as long as she's somewhat quiet during Isaac's lesson. 

One of my favorite benefits of this whole homeschool shindig has been the freedom to have mornings like this. It had started with a cello lesson, and went from there to the cello shop that just happens to sit next to the rad park. Honestly, I'd only meant to spend a few minutes there to placate the boys, but it went so well we spent a little over an hour. Everything does take longer with three kids, and it's not just because of the practical aspects. Sometimes it just takes longer to enjoy all three.

This scheme totally worked 98% of the time.
She was trying to sing his cello songs in the car afterward.

Other moms I see seem completely created to go at the pace of their kids. I'm just not like that, and hope I don't give the false impression on this blog that I'm really all that good at this parenting gig. As an impatient person, I try to take all the opportunities I can to slow myself down and notice each of my kids in a given day. It is entirely possible to parent all day long without really seeing my kids for all the tiny unending tasks, and I am the one who misses out when that happens.

I've noticed our daughter is very awake for a 1 year old. I know the more common word there would be "aware" but she is more lively than my boys were at her age and "awake" feels more like what I mean. They've always been pretty smart cookies too, but this kid, she surprises me all the time. She, unlike me, notices everything. She watches kids and adults and then tries to do whatever they did. She remembers multiple steps and understands what you are talking about, often even if it involves words she's probably only heard a few times. Yesterday when dishing out leftovers from a Chinese restaurant for lunch, I asked the boys if they wanted some Egg Drop Soup. She made it quite clear that she would like some, right away please. We have eaten that with her exactly once and nobody said "Soup! SOOOOOUUUUP!!! This is called SOUP!!!" to her. In fact the food was so good and we were all so hungry, we just went about distributing it and making mmmmmm sounds as quickly as we could, like a pile of chubby insects. But she remembered anyway. Stuff like that I find impressive.

Calvin & Hobbes is a favorite of the boys.
Therefor, she has decided she must read it while they have swim lessons.

Yesterday the boys had kind of a rough day and by late afternoon both had had crying fits. They were tired, the barometric pressure was off, I'm a mean mother, a curse was upon them... I dunno why. Primrose went up to them each and gave them a hug, then babbled at them in a gentle approximation of mom-voice. She's just good at things. More specifically, she's good at people. I'll have to wait and see if any of this stuff rubs off on me.