Saturday At Home

We had big plans to meet friends and head out for an FCC event at a park about 45 minutes away. The gas situation caused both of our families to rethink that plan and we ended up staying at home. The girls made the best of the situation and entertained themselves. Margaret Rose spent nearly 2 hours working on a large color by number project and Mary Clare built playground equipment for the blue monkey she got at the school Blue Mart on Friday. These children are easily entertained and I really need to remember that when I start that Christmas shopping :-)
Margaret Rose loves all kinds of art. She drew this picture this afternoon. She says this is Mary Clare driving the train and that she, Lee and I are riding it with our friend Anna Lin and her parents.

Go Monkey Go!

Happy Adoption Day!

Hip, hip, hip hooray! We celebrated three years with Mary Clare today! She loves the song "Happy Adoption Day!" and so that's what we call today even if the adoption wasn't official until the 12th. I planned to take the day off and keep her home from PreK but changed my mind after I missed almost a week with my back to school kidney stone experience. I'm actually glad we went on to school together. So many people there waited and prayed for this blessing with us that I was glad to share the day and her with them. Mary Clare danced into school singing the adoption day song. She hugged her Nana Pearl and after picking out 2 books for me to read to her class when they came to the library for storytime she went off to class. I heard she told everyone she saw that it was a special day because it was her 'doption day. When her class came to the library she wasn't with them. She'd "made a bad choice" and had to stay behind and clean up something she had scribbled on when she got angry. Her teacher and assistant were kind and when she did better later in the day they brought the children back. We read Over The Moon by Karen Katz & I Love You Like Crazy Cakes. Mary Clare shared pictures from our first meeting and laughed when she told everyone, "I look like my Baba. I was just bald." Then we had cupcakes. Her Godmother and I ate lunch with her later on. Thursday is chicken day in the cafeteria and Mary Clare spent most of the time bemoaning the fate of the chickens. She kept eyeing the kid across from her and finally said, "Those are it's bones you know. They used to be on it's inside." We've gone over and over about how everyone makes different choices when it comes to food and how talking about someone elses choices in front of them is rude. Obviously that lesson hasn't sunk in yet as my tiny vigilante vegetarian was hard at work trying to make converts.

Mary Clare loves her Nana Pearl!

Mary Clare got to choose dinner and she picked -surprise, surprise- macaroni cheese. I told her we had to have something to go with it and she asked for fake chicken nuggets. PoPo and Grumpy passed on the dinner but came for cake and the pinata. Doesn't every little Chinese girl want to have macaroni cheese and a pinata for their Adoption Day party? Oh well, her day- her choice.

The girls had a great time with the pinata and the presents and of course shared everything. Mary Clare asked for a Tow Mater toy and we got a Lightning to go with it and we all had a ball playing with them. Mary Clare was just gleeful most of the night!

Without prompting Margaret Rose said, "You are my best friend.

Happy Adoption Day Mary Clare. I love you!" Oh how we love these girls!

PoPo brought new fairy wings and fairy slippers, wands and crowns and...

a "Deluxe Beauty Kit" just like in Ruby's Beauty Shop!

as ordered- a Tow Mater that goes backward

Bibbidi-Bobbidi- Happy Adoption Day to you!

One Girl Peaceful and Safe

I still cannot belive that I get to be this child's mother. No one could have ever explained to me that on September 11th at 3:00 in the afternoon a total stranger would walk into a room and hand me my heart. She came to us with no tears but instead a sort of bemused curiosity. Knowing her now they way we do, knowing how hard transition is for her, I can't even begin to understand how difficult that day must have been. You wake up one morning, get put in this big box with wheels with 7 other little girls, ride forever, have these strange plastic things strapped to your feet and all of sudden find yourself in the arms of these odd looking people who talk funny and keep trying to taste you. I can still see her on Lee's shoulder walking on to Shamian Island ( busses weren't allowed on the island that afternoon) blowing raspberries to everyone that passed. She is still that funny, curious little girl and has grown to be clever and caring, loving, devoted, stubborn as the day is long, and oh so joyful. Everyone that meets her remarks on how she lives BIG- the good and the bad! Mary Clare vibrates with energy, she shines, she sparkles and by the grace of our heavenly Father she is ours. We are blessed beyond measure.


Back at the White Swan on our Gotcha Day in 2005
2006
2007 with big sister Margaret Rose
2008- Margaret Rose wanted to take the picture for us after studying our first Gotcha Day pic. We think she did a great job!

Take Heed

If you are the person who told our Nibblet that she can't be a train engineer because she is a girl, we'd appreciate it if you'd keep your narrow-minded, gender biased, antiquated, inaccurate opinions to yourself. A quick trip to the computer and a google later she has been reassured that not only can a girl drive a train but they have been doing so for well over 100 years. Hooray for Miss Ida Hewitt, the first female train engineer, who ran a locomotive on the Cairo branch line in West Virginia - a narrow gauge connection of the Baltimore and Ohio lines in the late 1800s. Miss Mary Clare's fondest desire is to drive her beloved Tweetsie :-)

On a lighter note, the girls decided that Doug the Dragon - guardian of the Guangdong empresses, slayer of bad dreams, brave defender of the Imperial Bedroom-needed a makeover. Thanks to watching way too much "Are You Being Served" with their Baba, our house is now host to South Carolina's only cross-dressing dragon. Poor Doug- it's hard to run off those bad dreams in heels.

A Fine Adventure

Baba and Margaret Rose called on their way home from the grocery to tell me they had picked up an extra passenger. Seems they had spotted a turtle attempting to cross a busy highway and had stopped to rescue it. Mary Clare couldn't wait for them to get home so she could see. She suggested we make it some clothes while we waited on them and was a little upset when I told her that we couldn't keep it for a pet. Her Godmother has a pet turtle amongst other things with fur and feathers and MC really wants a pet. MC petted Mr. Turtle gently and ooh-ed and ah-ed over it while her sister made disgusted faces and passed on her turn to touch it. Mr. Turtle hung out in the tub while we ate supper and then we loaded him up in a box and set out for the woods by the river to release him. Margaret Rose did finally agree to help carry the box after we convinced her that he was entirely too short to reach up and nip her fingers through the handles. Mr. Turtle proved quite the disappointment when he refused to come out of his shell before we had to leave for home but Mary Clare still declared it a "fine adventure" and Margaret Rose decided that she and Baba were just like the Wonder Pets.

On the way home we passed a church that had a large steeple bell outside on the lawn. Mary Clare was very excited and exclaimed, "Wow! Dat's a very big Taco Bell!"

Labor Day At Tweetsie

Cowgirls Mary Clare and Margaret Rose needed a Tweetsie fix so we headed up to Boone for the weekend. We spent the morning at the park riding the rides and left the afternoon of shows for Pa and Grandma. The girls had a great time as usual.

The Maraca Sisters

At my school the children accumulate cards for good behavior that they are allowed to spend at a school store. On Friday Mary Clare came home with a pair of blue (her favorite color!)maracas. She was very excited and we had a fun evening having a music parade with piano, tamborine, maraca and bells. Margaret Rose really liked the maracas and Mary Clare told her that she would go to school next week and be good again so that she could bring MR home a pair of purple maracas. MR latched hold to this idea and started giving MC pointers on being good. As we left for school on Monday, MR followed us out the door saying, " Don't talk Mary Clare. Use good manners Mary Clare. Don't bite your friends Mary Clare, etc." Poor Mary Clare looked overwhelmed with the task ahead but promised to do her best. On Wednesday the purple maracas were in her book bag and she couldn't wait to get home and give them to her sister. Her teachers couldn't believe that she'd chosen something for her sister and not for herself. They told me they tried to talk her out of the maracas because they knew she already had some but she insisted she had to have them for Margaret Rose. There was as much joy in the giving of those purple plastic maracas as there was in the receiving. We are blessed to have 2 girls who love each other so much!

This Week Brought To You By the Letter L

We all started school this week. Mary Clare and I began on Monday and Margaret Rose and Baba started Thursday. Margaret Rose wore her monogrammed back to school dress again this year. It is just so cute I couldn't resist. She did not think my suggestion that she wear it on the first day of school every year until she graduates (hey- it could just turn into a shirt) was too funny. Margaret Rose is all about the pretty. We are still reserving judgement on her new school. The back to school events have been poorly organized and a general waste of time. And apparently "We are vegetarians. Margaret Rose may not eat meat." needs further explanation to the new teacher as MR's lunch tray had chicken nuggets on Thursday and a pork sandwich on Friday. Still she seems happy enough but that is just MR's nature. We are still worried that she does not have the academic and experiential background to be successful in 1st grade. We have a conference scheduled for the 3rd week of school to make a decision about the rest of the year.
Mary Clare is going to PreK with me this year. I fully expected to have her back at daycare by the end of the week but she announced on Wednesday, "I do not go to daycare anymore. I go to PreK and IT IS FUN!!!!" I was concerned she would be afraid of one of her teachers who is a loving woman but very LOUD. I forgot that for better or worse MC just cannot be intimidated. She loves the woman that I was so worried about and she doesn't even mind the hour drive there and back. Of course I just pick her up out of her bed and put her in the car with her Fifi pillow and blanket. She puts on her uniform and eats her macaroni cheese at school and then gets her signature hairdo- the 4 ponytails. Thanks to big sister for telling me "This is how we do it in my China." and demonstrating the ponytail things that her little sister requested because, of course, she is 4.
The girls are growing up so fast! I've been watching video trying to get MR's adoption video together and am amazed at how little they were last year at this time - just babies really. On Monday our Mary Clare said her name was "Mary Cware" and she "woved me". By Wednesday she was Mary Clare and loved me with her funny overly enunciated Ls. At this rate she'll be driving by Christmas and Margaret Rose will be in college.

"We Surprised Him!"

so said my darlin' when I walked in and found them like this. I imagine you did sugar bee!

You've really got to wonder about the person who designed this thing.

A man should be learned in several sciences,

and should have a reasonable, philosophical and in some measure a mathematical head, to be a complete and excellent poet. -John Dryden

Shhh! Don't tell Lee I turned Margaret Rose's perfectly perfect mathematics pic into a poetry quotation. What does he expect? He did win my heart with poetry over 20 years ago!