Thanks Jodi!!!!!

moar funny pictures

This web site has been a real time killer AND side splitter- who knew?? So this one cracked me up for , like, hours.

Mama, Papa tell me again 'bout when I was born...

This is the phrase the Bean uses when she wants us to tell her something about our trip to China to get her. We have this book with that title written by Jamie Lee Curtis. The book is good and Bean requests it frequently. Though in the book, there is a domestic adoption and things are a bit different form our story, it's still relevant to us and I read it whenever she asks for it.
Lately though, she will just say that line and the wait to see what we will tell her. Leslie usually lets me so the telling because he says that he never really knows what she wants to hear ( I think that it's just a bit harder for him to vocalize the emotions of that time ), he always participates and adds little facts in too. The other night she said this to us right in the middle of cooking dinner, she was at the table chatting away while we were working on dinner together...so we stopped what we were doing and looked at her. Honestly though, for the first time I was at a complete blank as to what to tell her, so I said "I don't know Les, what should we tell her", he goes, "tell her about how you lubed her all up with her lotion that first night". So that's what I told her about. I told her how we snatched her up and took her down the long hallway in the hotel to our room and locked the door to keep her in and keep her safe. I told her how I just couldn't believe that she was mine. I told her how beautiful I thought she was and how little she was. Then I told her about getting her lotion out and starting to rub it on her and how she was like " hey lady you are touching me" at first and then how her whole tiny body just sort of softened out and relaxed and how she stared at my face the whole time, with that completely unreadable expression. I told her how I just kept using lotion so I could keep touching her. The whole time I was telling her this story, again she just watched my face the whole time, this time though, as she watched my face, a blind man could have read her expression- she was smiling from ear to ear and her face was glowing, she was all lit up and happy.
Les picked a good moment to tell her about because as I look back on it, those first moments of trust were the most precious gift I could have ever been given.


****Update I should mention that the photo up top is one taken on that first night, right after the lube down and a bottle. I always loved those polks dot jammies and still have them put up because I just couldn't part with them.

The end of an era

The crib is out. I think that I am the only person in the house that mourned it's passing. Don't get me wrong, I am glad that Ev is growing and maturing and I am so proud of the little girl that she is, it's just well, no crib. We have her toddler bed all together and put in her room. OH yeah we also had a room change. The bower at the back of the house with it's three outside walls and no insulation was just a bit too cold with the colder weather. So we talked to Bean and switched her to the smallest and warmest room upstairs. She handled the change pretty well and even helped in hauling all of her stuff from the old room to the new room.
I am really quite proud of Bean. She is three and a half and this is how bedtime goes around here: Around 8 or 8:30 pm, she will say "well, let's get this kid to bed", then she will go into the bathroom, wash her face and hands, brush her teeth, use the potty, put a pull-up on, change into pj's and come out of the bathroom. Then she will say "I'm going up now, let's go read a story", then we will all go up, Billy as well, have a couple of stories and then we will kiss her and hug her and talk about what the next day may bring and then we switch off her light and she goes to sleep. It's very nice. To be honest some nights I will forget a step, like lip gloss or a cup of water and then she will call for me and I will complete the forgotten portion and everything is cool. She will also go thru phases where she thinks it's okay to call me upstairs for the silliest thing, a couple of times a night but we just try to be patient and remind her that it's bed time , blah blah blah- eventually she stops that and we settle back down to our norm.
Overall she is a good sleeper and loves the bed time routine. This really makes me proud and happy because sleep issues in the adoptive community can be gruesome. Actually right after China and up until we had Ev home for a year was quite gruesome for us, but Les and I had talked and we knew what we wanted as far as bed time and sleeping and we just used ALOT of patience and understanding to get here. It wasn't easy, we had some rough times, there were nights when I did not leave that crib side until the wee hours when she finally settled down. Again it's not all roses around here, we have rough nights too, it's just that overall, things are good and I am glad of that.
I thought that I would post a few pictures of her "new" room, same old stuff, different location.

Insomnia Run-on

I am not sleeping.
Again.
This is something that I struggle with on almost a daily/nightly basis. I have inherited my father's insomnia- thanks ever so much Dad. Now, if you don't have insomnia and can just sleep when you are supposed to or when you want to or when it's appropriate- you will have absolutely no idea what it is like for someone who simply can not sleep. It's not a lack of tiredness, because you can feel the tiredness pulling at the back of your mind and thoughts, it's simply an inability to follow up on that tiredness. It's now 6:14 am, I finally fell asleep last night at around 1 am, at 3:30 my mind went from being sound asleep to completely and utterly and irreversibly alert, in a split second and there has been no going back. This is very typical. It is so frustrating to lay there minute after long minute, being hyper-aware of every little thing that is happening, leg itches, sounds, your soundly sleeping spouses breathing...... Your mind will start to wander, you will try to plan your future, solve world problems, review your past, eventually your mind runs out of nice things to think of and you start reviewing bad or scary or anxious memories and that is not conducive to sleepy brain- so then you start to try and relax and turn your mind off, impossible. Is it too hot? Is it too cold? Is it the bed? Is it the cats? Nope. It's just your brain mis-firing and there you are, tired, so tired that you would weep if that wouldn't wake your spouse, and sleepy yet sleepless and awake. Awake really isn't the word for it, your BRITTLE, you are just there between two mental states and one is winning out for some insane reason and you are denied rest.
Admittedly, I have always been a "night owl". Fine. I have always been the kook that will clean out cupboards at 1 am or read until 2. That worked for me. I have friends that tease me about sleeping alot, but really even when I was sleeping at night my sleep time was 7 to 8 hours , it just started later than the rest of the world. OK. I could deal with that, I even liked being a night owl, I like being up at night, it's a different world. Before I was a mother I could indulge in that. Not so much after we got Ev. I did successfully switch my schedule and was all turned around, an upright citizen of the "in bed at 10 and up at 7 crowd" that lasted for a few months. Then it all went horribly wrong..... The insomnia started.
The thing with this is that, eventually my mind will turn off or want to turn off and my body will want to follow in the most desperate way, but by then, it's day time (anywhere from 8 am to 11 am) and I have a family and a life that I want to enjoy. It's tough. I try. My husband is so understanding of this. He feels so bad for me sometimes that I think the concern on his face might bring me to tears.
So OK. Solutions. Self induced sleep deprivation in order to re-set the internal clock - this DOES NOT WORK. I have tried that at lest twice a month for months and months now. Ummmmm, rigid schedule with no naps, and lots of exercise- nope that doesn't work. Alcohol intake, nope PLUS I get the added bonus of a headache in the morning. Pills. hummmm pills are tricky. 800 mg of Motrin will help me sleep alright, but I get a nice, "groggy and grumpy all day Motrin hangover". Ditto with Tylenol. The OTC pills that are for sleep give me very hyper dreams and light sleep with weird and twitching legs. I could really go on here but I think you are getting the picture. I have insomnia AND strange reactions to pills- thanks again Dad :)
So I will away to the local quackery next week. I have been on an Ambien trial, Ambien = too strong or either ineffectual. And will now try the newer set of sleep aids like Lunestra or something. Wish me luck.
Until then, I will have to try and grab sleep where I can. So now all of you know why those "Dillon Household Naps" are so damned sacrosanct.

Swordplay?

Just so you don't go thinking we are never wild around here. Sometimes a girl MUST attack her father with a foam sword, you know?

Again with the rain...

Yet another rainy and miserable day. Something had to be done. So, we loaded up in the car and drove to one of the North Carolina State Aquariums. We have been to the aquarium several times so there were no big surprises and I even left the camera at home, however, we still had fun together and we were all glad to have a day out of the house. After the aquarium, we went out for dinner and had some Sushi- yum yum yum. Then the drive back home in the rain while Bean slept and Les and I chatted along the way. All in all - a good day, despite the cold and rain. I will say that the whole time we were at the aquarium, Bean could not wait to see the octopus. these area couple of pictures from our last visit- in October.

It stopped raining!!!

Finally, after a week long bout of cold and rain, it was dry enough to get outside today. I abandoned all housework, Ev and I grabbed a soccer ball and out into the yard we went. We had some fun, we swung, we played soccer, Ev got her car and played "drive thru" and "Mama pushes the car until her legs fall off". It was good to get out and run and be silly, I think we were a bit stir crazy. Of course, our orange friend was glad to have us out and about as well. Oh and we even went down to the "Itty Bitty Store" and had a snack on the porch as we watched the world go by. Now Bean is tucked up in her bed (still the crib) and napping. We needed a good day outside, it's like someone hit the re-set button.