Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Sigh.....
The game of 20 questions started this past week from a few people. I was bombarded with questions about my children, scoliosis, adoption, Ethiopia, Korea and more. It was kind of overwhelming, kind of annoying and really really frustrating. I actually felt bad for the question askers as their view of life and the world is so very sheltered and judgemental.
I bit my tongue a little during the conversation due to the environment we were in but it was so hard. I had so much I wanted to say and either couldn't find the words or was just trying to be polite. Well this is my blog and I don't need to be polite here.
First things first, my husband and I chose adoption. No we cannot have children biologically yet we are blessed with 2 beautiful little girls that are our own. Yes my children are my own and yes I love them as much as I would had I given birth to them.
Ethiopia is beautiful. No it is not gross or horrible. I can't wait to go back and no I am not crazy for wanting to go back or wanting to share all of Ethiopia with my daughters. Poverty does exist in Ethiopia and it is heart breaking to see yet Ethiopians were smiling, welcoming and truly wonderful people. I cherish the time I spent there and I grew as a person. Futhermore, I did not save my daughter. She lost so much. Wait why explain....chances are if you are reading this you understand and if you don't understand then I doubt I can explain it well enough that you will.
Yes I want to see Kiya's mother again. Yes I would love for Kiya to meet her mother and no I am not worried that she will take Kiya away from me. No Kiya is not HIV + and even if she was it is none of your business. Not once did I ever worry about getting HIV while in Ethiopia. Seriously, I was asked this.
No I don't think it will be easier not knowing Katie's mother. I actually think it will be harder. I am excited to experience Korea and saddened that I will likely never meet sweet Katie's mother. The adoption process is long and no I just can't go to Korea and claim my child. To my knowledge, Katie does not have any medical conditions and it wouldn't matter if she did.
No we did not know about Kiya's scoliosis when we brought her home. Even if we did, it wouldn't have mattered. Kiya is my daughter. She has a curvy back. We will deal with it as a family and no I never thought about suing my agency for not telling me. They didn't know either. I am just grateful that Kiya had amazing nannies to take care of her and help her grow. And now has an amazing doctor to help her grow straight.
I am exhausted just thinking about all of this. The askers were just so overly curious and clueless. Adoption is hard. Scoliosis sucks. That said I am blessed to be a mom. I wouldn't change things. Sure I wish I could wave a wand and make Kiya's back straight but she is my little princess curvy back and all so it is what it is.
I am hoping the askers have had their fill and will move on to someone else. I am not sure if they start it again that I will be able to bite my tongue. To be fair I don't think they truly understood the depth of their questions. I really do think they were very curious and hadn't been exposed to a lot so they see my life from the outside and it doesn't make sense so they asks questions. Fair enough to some extent I suppose but my life makes perfect sense to me.
I think this would have been different had it been the first time I was asked inappropriate questions. I wish it was the first time....sigh...and I wish it was the last....sigh.
I bit my tongue a little during the conversation due to the environment we were in but it was so hard. I had so much I wanted to say and either couldn't find the words or was just trying to be polite. Well this is my blog and I don't need to be polite here.
First things first, my husband and I chose adoption. No we cannot have children biologically yet we are blessed with 2 beautiful little girls that are our own. Yes my children are my own and yes I love them as much as I would had I given birth to them.
Ethiopia is beautiful. No it is not gross or horrible. I can't wait to go back and no I am not crazy for wanting to go back or wanting to share all of Ethiopia with my daughters. Poverty does exist in Ethiopia and it is heart breaking to see yet Ethiopians were smiling, welcoming and truly wonderful people. I cherish the time I spent there and I grew as a person. Futhermore, I did not save my daughter. She lost so much. Wait why explain....chances are if you are reading this you understand and if you don't understand then I doubt I can explain it well enough that you will.
Yes I want to see Kiya's mother again. Yes I would love for Kiya to meet her mother and no I am not worried that she will take Kiya away from me. No Kiya is not HIV + and even if she was it is none of your business. Not once did I ever worry about getting HIV while in Ethiopia. Seriously, I was asked this.
No I don't think it will be easier not knowing Katie's mother. I actually think it will be harder. I am excited to experience Korea and saddened that I will likely never meet sweet Katie's mother. The adoption process is long and no I just can't go to Korea and claim my child. To my knowledge, Katie does not have any medical conditions and it wouldn't matter if she did.
No we did not know about Kiya's scoliosis when we brought her home. Even if we did, it wouldn't have mattered. Kiya is my daughter. She has a curvy back. We will deal with it as a family and no I never thought about suing my agency for not telling me. They didn't know either. I am just grateful that Kiya had amazing nannies to take care of her and help her grow. And now has an amazing doctor to help her grow straight.
I am exhausted just thinking about all of this. The askers were just so overly curious and clueless. Adoption is hard. Scoliosis sucks. That said I am blessed to be a mom. I wouldn't change things. Sure I wish I could wave a wand and make Kiya's back straight but she is my little princess curvy back and all so it is what it is.
I am hoping the askers have had their fill and will move on to someone else. I am not sure if they start it again that I will be able to bite my tongue. To be fair I don't think they truly understood the depth of their questions. I really do think they were very curious and hadn't been exposed to a lot so they see my life from the outside and it doesn't make sense so they asks questions. Fair enough to some extent I suppose but my life makes perfect sense to me.
I think this would have been different had it been the first time I was asked inappropriate questions. I wish it was the first time....sigh...and I wish it was the last....sigh.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Presenting.......
Sweet Baby Katherine, our little Katie,
Kiya's baby sister.
We got the green light to share pictures and her name. So here she is. She was 4 months old in the first two pictures which where her referral pictures.
We are still hoping to have her home by next fall. She is getting so big and her hair so curly. She is Korean/African American and her mother named her Katherine. She is a perfect fit for our family. Our little Katie. Kiya just loves her already and so do we.
Life with Kiya update
Life with Kiya is amazing, tiring, fun, exhausting and wonderful all at the same time. She is hands down the loudest, goofiest kid I have ever met. She loves to laugh, dance, sing and be bossy.
I just love watching her learn and grow and yet everyday I am reminded that she is not my little baby anymore. She is a big girl full of big opinions. I had some ideas of what she might dress up as for Halloween. We have tutu's and flowers so I was thinking princess or ballerina but oh no. The last few days we keep hearing, "I dress up like Foofa, mommy." So thanks to some savvy Internet shopping, Foofa will be the costume this year.
The week before Halloween, Kiya will head to Shriner's for cast #5. I can hardly believe it. We have been casting for a year. Whew....what a year it has been. I am so grateful for all the friends we have made a long the way. We sadly won't be at cast #5 with any of them but don't get me started on that one. Kiya will be in this horrible pink cast as I call it for the longest time yet, exactly 3 months. It is so gross and so tight and well I can't wait for it to be gone. Word at the dinner table is that purple will be the next color so we shall see.
Just around the corner is Miss Kiya's 3rd birthday. She is all 3 and going on 16. I have so far found 3 to a challenging age. She is strong willed and at times defiant. She has started to talk back. She is so very smart and while that is great at times it is not. She has an amazing memory. She can recite entire books to us. Her current favorite book to "read" to us is Barnyard Dance. She knows all the words and insists on doing it all by herself. When she is done she just gets this huge grin and is just beaming. I love it.
She is now over Dora. She loves her Dora toys but will not watch the show unless it happens to be on and it is bedtime then she will ask to watch it in order to stall. She has acquired a new favorite show, Olivia. Sigh. If you have never watched it Olivia is a very dramatic young pig who loves to exaggerate, be on the bossy side and is super creative. Kiya is by nature a very dramatic child anyway so I am not shocked she likes Olivia I just hope the drama factor doesn't increase. There is only so much drama this mama can handle.
She is still talking about her baby sister. So much so, we shared with her preschool teachers that Kiya does in fact have a baby sister on the way. We shared with them baby K's name so when Kiya talks about her they know what she is talking about. And we discussed with them the words we are using at home to describe our wait to bring baby K home so that we are all on the same page.
Lately, we have also been getting reports about her day at preschool. From the back seat of the car, she will tell me, "Bradley walked away from the table. He wanted to read books" or "Lilly was crying. She had tears. She no eat her crackers. She was sad." We got one report of "Henry hit me." I asked her, did Henry hit you? She said, "yes." I asked her what did you do then, "I push Henry. Walk away Henry. Walk away." We then talked about how we don't hit or push.
Kiya has made some great little friends in preschool. She likes to hold hands with some of the other little girls and she gives them hugs before she leaves. Her best friend is a little girl named Lillian or Lilly. Kiya likes her so much that she named her pillow pet Lilly. Too cute. She also likes her baby sister so much that she named her elephant after baby K.
I could go on and on about sweet Miss Kiya. About her true love/obsession with all things flower related and baby related but that could take pages. Kiya at 3 is going to keep me on my toes, test my patience and make me smile. She is such an amazing kid. Just last night, she asked me to come lie in bed with her for a few minutes. I love it and it was just a few minutes and then she asked me to leave. Those few minutes are so precious to me. She has asked a few times before and I always oblige because I know all too soon that those requests will be no longer. I am one lucky mama that much I know for sure.
I just love watching her learn and grow and yet everyday I am reminded that she is not my little baby anymore. She is a big girl full of big opinions. I had some ideas of what she might dress up as for Halloween. We have tutu's and flowers so I was thinking princess or ballerina but oh no. The last few days we keep hearing, "I dress up like Foofa, mommy." So thanks to some savvy Internet shopping, Foofa will be the costume this year.
The week before Halloween, Kiya will head to Shriner's for cast #5. I can hardly believe it. We have been casting for a year. Whew....what a year it has been. I am so grateful for all the friends we have made a long the way. We sadly won't be at cast #5 with any of them but don't get me started on that one. Kiya will be in this horrible pink cast as I call it for the longest time yet, exactly 3 months. It is so gross and so tight and well I can't wait for it to be gone. Word at the dinner table is that purple will be the next color so we shall see.
Just around the corner is Miss Kiya's 3rd birthday. She is all 3 and going on 16. I have so far found 3 to a challenging age. She is strong willed and at times defiant. She has started to talk back. She is so very smart and while that is great at times it is not. She has an amazing memory. She can recite entire books to us. Her current favorite book to "read" to us is Barnyard Dance. She knows all the words and insists on doing it all by herself. When she is done she just gets this huge grin and is just beaming. I love it.
She is now over Dora. She loves her Dora toys but will not watch the show unless it happens to be on and it is bedtime then she will ask to watch it in order to stall. She has acquired a new favorite show, Olivia. Sigh. If you have never watched it Olivia is a very dramatic young pig who loves to exaggerate, be on the bossy side and is super creative. Kiya is by nature a very dramatic child anyway so I am not shocked she likes Olivia I just hope the drama factor doesn't increase. There is only so much drama this mama can handle.
She is still talking about her baby sister. So much so, we shared with her preschool teachers that Kiya does in fact have a baby sister on the way. We shared with them baby K's name so when Kiya talks about her they know what she is talking about. And we discussed with them the words we are using at home to describe our wait to bring baby K home so that we are all on the same page.
Lately, we have also been getting reports about her day at preschool. From the back seat of the car, she will tell me, "Bradley walked away from the table. He wanted to read books" or "Lilly was crying. She had tears. She no eat her crackers. She was sad." We got one report of "Henry hit me." I asked her, did Henry hit you? She said, "yes." I asked her what did you do then, "I push Henry. Walk away Henry. Walk away." We then talked about how we don't hit or push.
Kiya has made some great little friends in preschool. She likes to hold hands with some of the other little girls and she gives them hugs before she leaves. Her best friend is a little girl named Lillian or Lilly. Kiya likes her so much that she named her pillow pet Lilly. Too cute. She also likes her baby sister so much that she named her elephant after baby K.
I could go on and on about sweet Miss Kiya. About her true love/obsession with all things flower related and baby related but that could take pages. Kiya at 3 is going to keep me on my toes, test my patience and make me smile. She is such an amazing kid. Just last night, she asked me to come lie in bed with her for a few minutes. I love it and it was just a few minutes and then she asked me to leave. Those few minutes are so precious to me. She has asked a few times before and I always oblige because I know all too soon that those requests will be no longer. I am one lucky mama that much I know for sure.
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