dispatch

Exhausted. Enthralled. Will write more soon, as soon as I get used to being someone's mom. This is all so new and unexpected, this little new person who thinks by herself and makes decisions and has needs that only her dad and I can take care of. This little girl who practically gives herself whiplash turning her head so fast when we say her name. This little girl who is amazing and funny and sweet and perfect. Who smells like sunshine and happiness. Who feeds me Cheerios and then tries to take them back. Who loves cookies and all sorts of food and being hugged and held up in the air for "airplane" rides. Who loves to be loved, and gives back love so freely. I'll be honest- I'm NOT enjoying the lack of sleep, of the feeling of sleepwalking through parts of the day. The fact that she gets herself into a screaming crying panting frenzy when she's frustrated or needs something or if she wants to be picked up and we just CAN'T because we are peeing or taking boiling water off the stove for dinner or getting a bottle ready. The fact that we can't make those times any easier for her. The feeling like I am depriving her of so much by not being 100% all the time. (The overloaded diapers also take a lot of getting used to.) But I'm learning every second of every day. And am so grateful to her that she still smiles and appears to like me even though I'm bumbling quite a bit with this whole "mom" thing. p.s. got my camera back from the kind soul who foudn it at the airport. Will take and photos photos and videos soon.

It's Cupcake's world... I just live in it

Quick update before I crash: Everything is going well. So much has changed, but it's not nearly as earth-shatteringly stressful as I imagined. of course, a gummy, drooly smile and giggle helps offset the stress a whole lot. When you are a parent, suddenly you stop dealing in weeks or days ahead, and you just function from hour to hour, minute to minute. The jetlag is still an issue- I'm trying very hard to keep up with Tom and Cupcake's sleeping habits but it's proving difficult. Both of them sleep whenever they feel tired, so it's all sort of sporadic. I try and sleep when they do, but it's like this: 1pm-3pm sleep, up from 3pm-10pm, nap from 10pm-2am, up from 2am-6am, sleep from 6am-4pm, etc. Without some sort of drug, I can't pull that off. So I spend most of the time when they are asleep getting things ready- making bottles, cleaning, ripping out pages from magazine for Cupcake to crumble. We started Cupcake on food-food, and she's fond of bananas and Cheerios. She still doesn't get the Cheerio thing- she likes to move them around the various trays she is attached to, and throw them at the cats, but other than that, she pretty much thinks of them as small toys. When we put one in her mouth, she acts very surprised and pleased. We took Cupcake in the pool yesterday, and after being initially irritated by the very bright sunlight and the fact she couldn't just swim off on her own, she was pleased. Bringing her to the pool was probably a mistake, though, because we found out today she still has a little bit of an ear infection left over from Vietnam, and needs ten more days of antibiotics. Oh well. She won't start her Olympic simming training just yet. While we were at the doctor's office, he talked to us about immunizations, and whether or not we wanted to re-do some of the shots. Some of them we have to do (MMR, etc.) and some of them she still hasn't received. It's a tough call. He's an adoptive father himself, so we appreciated his perspective. One thing that shocks me is that children are REQUIRED to have the chicken pox vaccine before starting school. What the heck? What ever happened to kids just getting chicken pox and that's that? Has chicken pox become a dangerous national epidemic since I was a kid? I didn't even HAVE chicken pox (not for lack of my mom trying), and I still don't think kids should have the vaccine. I mean, if you don't get them by the time you are 20, then by all means, get the vaccine. I did when I turned 21 because someone I worked with was very very ill from shingles, and my doctor was concerned I might get exposed through a chain reaction at the museum where I worked. But a kid? What ever happened to just getting stuff and letting that be the natural immunization? Are they going to have vaccinations for foot fungus next? Another thing is the TB vaccine that Cupcake received in Vietnam. It's pretty useless, and she'll ALWAYS test positive for TB now. TB is a pretty serious thing in my family cause my mom had it when she was a teenager, so we don't take it lightly. I hate the fact that Cupcake will have to have a chest x-ray done to rule it out in the future. Anyway... besides the trip to the doctor, we took Cupcake to visit the cat shelter Tom and I volunteer at. She was very interested. I have no intention of putting her to work quite yet, but I'd like to start taking her during our shifts so that she gets used to the environment and the animals. I'm hoping she'll love animals as much as we do, and want to help out when she'd old enough. We'll see. I'm off to spend some time with MY kitties, and then to bed.

Home with baby

So Tom came home yesterday. With Cupcake. I'm sorry I haven't updated sooner, but it really is a round the clock job. Here's my entry from yesterday: I am completely in love. Oh my goodness! What a funny, sweet, beautiful little girl! And she SNORES, just like her dad! We got to the airport right as Tom's plane was landing (6am), so by the time we got up to security, he was walking towards the checkpoint. I got a few photos of him carrying Cupcake towards us, which was great. After they came within 20 feet, all bets were off. I pretty much dropped my camera in the baby bag and grabbed my daughter. She was cranky, but she looked at me and touched my face and babbled. She even smiled a tiny smile. I honestly wonder if she recognized me- before Tom left for Vietnam, I recorded several little videos of me on his Macbook with the built in webcam, and Tom played them for her several times a day. Regardless, she came right to me and was very observant. We headed to luggage and my mom and I went and changed Cupcake's diaper and Tom got his bags. And we headed home. Poor Cupcake is really teething, but even though she's in significant pain, she's such a good baby. She spent the car ride home playing peek-a-boo with me and laughing and babbling. She only lost it at the very end of the two hour car ride, which is pretty good considering she's been traveling for 36 hours. My mom started freaking out when Cupcake started crying, telling us to feed her and do something, even though Tom and I both agreed the baby had just HAD ENOUGH and just wanted to freak out a bit. I got a teething ring in her mouth and she settled down a little bit. However, she desperately wanted out of the car seat and she wanted to be held. There are no car seats in Vietnam, so she just couldn't understand why we wouldn't pick her up and comfort her, and why the hell she was strapped in that seat. I gotta admit, I was tempted to get her out and cuddle her, but visions of Britney Spears set me straight. After getting her up here in the condo, Cupcake made a MAJOR poopy. Just... wow. My only experience with other poopy is scooping litterboxes here and at the shelter, so diapers are a whole new thing. Yowsers. It sort of look like she manufactured mustard. It was somethin' else. This part I need to get used to. We bathed her, changed her, and put her down for a nap. She was cranky and overstimulated, so I lay (lie? Laid? whatever...) down on the floor next to the portable crib (in the bedroom) and she settled down. However, instead of napping, she came right to the side of the crib, pushed her head into the mesh side of the crib, and tried to make me laugh. She kept pushing her nose against it so it looked kinda like someone pushing their face into glass and smiling. I'd have my eyes closed and she'd say something, so I'd open my eyes and there she was, all funny faced and smiling. I tried hard not to respond but it really was incredibly funny because she was being very tricky about it, and it was just funny. I'd start laughing and she'd pretend to lay back down, get settled. The minute I closed my eyes, she did it again. In other really good news, the cats don't seem to be too upset. As soon as we got in, I went right over to Delilah and greeted her first, like I always do. I didn't want her to think we were suddenly not remembering her or neglecting one of our routines that we've had for 9 years. We made sure to pay EXCESS attention to her when we first got home- the minute she realized how cute Cupcake is, she started doing incredibly cute cat things (rolling around like a kitten, bringing toys over, etc.), and so we made sure to love and praise her. I really think that helped a lot, because Delilah showed no resentment and while she won't go near the baby yet, she stays very very close. I think Chester honestly does not understand what sort of WEIRD cat we brought home to him. When Cupcake first went down for the nap, he went into the room and sat by the crib and looked in at her, and she babbled to him for quite a while. The one bad thing: there are only a few photos, and only one of me with Cupcake at the airport. I was hoping both my parents would come into the airport and help record the event, but my father decided he'd rather circle around the airport in the car than park (*sigh*) and my mom was too busy trying to keep me off my feet in the airport (*bigger sigh*). I feel bad for being disappointed, but it would be nice if my family were not so set in their ways. I kinda hoped we would park in short term, walk across to the terminal, and meet Tom upstairs. Nope. Oh well. There's tons of photos to be taken, right? And as I was looking for the camera to download the photos, I couldn't find it. Luckily, some very kind soul found it at the airport, along with my mom's cellphone, and called us to get our address so he could send it. So not only are there not many photos, but I don't even have the camera. Oh well. Today was another long day, but I'll write about that tomorrow. Right now I am going to leap into bed while both Cupcake and Tom are sleeping. I suddenly understand SO MUCH about human behavior in people who have children- I now understand why my friends have made some of the choices they did. You just do the best you can, but I gotta admit, it doesn't feel like enough. One thing I will say- I had no idea what I was in for, and I still feel like we're playing house, and Cupcake will need to go back soon. It doesn't feel real at all. But the fact that she's this real live PERSON, and not just a face in a photo, is so tremendous. G'night!

11 hours and counting...

11 hours until Cupcake time. The trip to the airport will take a little more than two hours, so... in a little bit I'm going to take something to help me sleep. I hope it works. I haven't been sleeping at all lately and tomorrow is going to be a LONG day. The terror stage has finally set in. Wow. I'm just scared and nervous and my heart is pumping and my stomach is flipping all over the place. I held it together for so long... wow.

travel update #7 - coming home

So tired! Packing the condo is finally 90% done and tonight we are putting all Cupcake's stuff together for her brief stay here until we move into the house. Tom and Cupcake are officially on the first of many flights that will bring them home. In a little more than 24 hours, I will be meeting my daughter!! Okay, back to babyproofing. (tick tock!)

More video!

I cannot believe that in less than 75 hours, I get to meet this amazing, funny, silly, sweet, adorable little baby girl.

travel update #6 - photos!

Okay, I am going to just come out and say it- I don't know when the heck I am going to be able to answer any email. I am SO overwhelmed right now, especially with the possibility of me moving to the new house tomorrow. So I wanted to thank everyone out there that's emailed me with congratulations and love for Cupcake. I've read every email, and formulated a response in my head- I just don't have energy or focus (or time!) to get it all down. I'm really sorry :( The most common email was a request for photos. I put them all up here. I update that page (and my Flickr account) every time Tom sends new photos. However, if you have any questions you still want me to answer, or want me to reply to your earlier email, just drop me another email and I'll get back to you for sure. It will help me if I can sort of file away the last month of email and start fresh. ---------- Talked to Tom this morning (his Sunday night) and today was mostly a day of travel. Today was just a lot more travel- from Long Hai to Hanoi for the final leg of their trip. Tomorrow is a day off, and Tuesday and Wednesday is administrative and government stuff. And then my family returns home! I did find out one cool thing- one of the other adoptive parents on the trip, Sherri, is keeping a WONDERFUL travel journal with details of their trip. So for all the details I haven't been able to provide, please visit Sherri's site. But before you leave- new photos!
First bath!!
(Really grumpy after her doctor's visit :( - poor Cupcake!) All the new photos (a ton of them) are on Flickr, and for those without a Flickr account, I posted the Vietnam/Cupcake photos here.

travel update #5, sorta

I wish I had some detailed news, but I don't. Tom and I chat only briefly every day, and he's not the most detail oriented guy in the world. I am trying to piece details of the trip together for Cupcake to have when she gets older, but it's hard. I am really hoping that either Tom or his mom is keeping the journal they promised they would. Yes, I'm feeling very frustrated and very out-of-the-loop right now. I am trying to remind myself she'll be home in just six days, but this was an incredible journey and one of *the* most important things in her life, and I couldn't be there. I was depending on people for information, and it's not coming, so I feel really lost right now. ANYWAY- there are some new photos, which I'm going to post on Flickr and the Vietnam gallery on my website after I size them down and upload them. Preview pics to come here later! I promise to send everyone the link tonight. What I do know is that Grace had her medical exam (which she hated with a passion) and checked out okay, except for one of her ears, but we kind of knew that she had something going on. I'm glad the antibiotics worked. She's no longer sick and is keeping all her food down and in. She weighs 18 pounds, so she'll be quite a bundle for me to carry around! Besides the medical exam, I think they had a few days off to sight-see and shop in Ho Chi Minh City. Now they are heading towards Hanoi, after a brief stop on the coast for a relaxing weekend. In Hanoi, they'll wrap things up and on Thursday they head home. Here in Mama-land, I have been packing like a madwoman. Our whole spare room is now wall to wall, ceiling to floor with boxes. Pretty much everything is packed but the furniture (most of which is staying here- buh-bye, college stuff!) and the little things I need to get me through the week. Hopefully, the movers can come Monday or Tuesday and we can get the boxes out of this condo and into the house. It looks like we might have the Certificate of Occupancy on Monday, if we are lucky. Two and a half years for this house. I don't feel relief- all I feel is completely stressed and terrified. I'll be taking on a house and a baby in the same time period. It's a little overwhelming. At this point, all I want to do is get some things unpacked, so it feels like we have a home again. I'm not good at this living in transition thing.

Video of Cupcake!
Here's a little movie of Cupcake after her G&R. It's worth it to stick around till the end- her "discussion" with Tom is priceless. Sorry for the lack of communication- I'm working on email/updates now. I've been packing for the move, what a headache... Okay, here she is...

travel update #4

Just got off the phone with Tom. They spent the day at the hotel, hanging out with Grace. Unfortunately, it sounds as if she has an ear infection. She woke up unhappy and has been tugging at her ears. So Tom and his mom are going to treat her for that. She also needs to go poopy, and is a little fussy as a result. Poor girl :( Here's some photos from their third day with Grace: This is going to sound terribly biased and selfish, but I have the most beautiful baby. EVER. I can't even wrap my brain and heart and soul around the whole reality of it all. I can't wait to meet her and hold her. If you want to see new photos, email me, or easier, add me to your flickr friends list (I'm gingerblue on there).