SYMBOLIC LOVE, I'M DAFT!

While I couldn't sleep last night I spent the time sewing a PE bag for Alice. I've been planning to do this since September. I've been accumulating the necessary bits for a while. I actually made a bag at the end of last week but it was the wrong shape, so over the weekend I cut out more fabric.

It's in her uniform colour, the second version is a better proportion, this time the lower part is needle cord and not cotton and the gingham part has a frill above the drawstring section, much better! I've turned it into a backpack style bag by adding extra tabs at the bottom. The letter were from E*bay (try searching for iron on letters).

The daft thing is that Alice doesn't actually need a PE bag yet - though I do send in a bag with spare clothes in, but it's the symbolic nature of this bag that's important.

As an adult I learnt that better communication would have brought benefits through my teenage years - as illustrated by several drawstring bags. When I went away to boarding school we had a long list of necessary items, including 2 drawstring bags, 1 smaller one for laundry and a larger one for our extensive PE kit. My bags came from the school outfitter - we assumed that everyone had the same, most people had the same type of bag as I did - nasty, dark, thin, denim with a black string and when the bags were full the string dug into my hands, boring, slightly unpleasant, utilitarian bags. But a friend had a different bag, homemade and lovely - a pale bag with a washing line appliqued across it and 'Laundry' embroidered underneath, with a cotton, co-ordinating, thick drawstring, so much nicer. Her Mum had made it for her. I didn't want her bag, but I would have loved my Mum to have made something similar. I didn't share this with Mum until several years after I left school and of course she would have been delighted to have made me a special bag, I'd just never told her! So part of my 'mothering' has to be making my daughter a special bag, which she will probably never value in the same way as me - she'll probably aspire to be like everyone else and have a 'normal' mass produced one!!

MOJO

. . . no mojo, low mojo but not enough to post, FB's quicker!

However I really value the family chronicle that this blog has become and as I wait for another baby I want to remember what we've been doing in recent weeks (just in case she was born recently, unlikely, but just in case!)

Monday 19th - I worked, Alice was on the beginning of her Half Term
Tuesday 20th - a day at home together before I left Alice with Nana and T at home while I went to spend the night with my pupils at a residential centre
Wednesday 21st - home in time for M*sicbugs
Thursday 22nd - day at home preparing and packing (with a large supermarket shop too)
Friday 23rd - drove to Norfolk
Saturday 24th - Festival of Thankfulness in Norfolk with lots of other Chinese adoptive families and friends
Sunday 25th - more of the same
Monday 26th - drove home!
Tuesday 27th - day out with D, A and baby D at the community farm
Wednesday 28th - quiet day, unpacking etc
Thursday 29th - Circle Adoption Group walk at Dyrham Park
Friday 30th - met with Grandad and N for pub lunch just south of Hungerford
Saturday 31st - soft play with D and A over lunchtime, Halloween party in the evening at a friend from nursery's
Sunday 1st - church, lunch in Machen to celebrate cousin D's 60th
Monday 2nd - training day
Tuesday 3rd - Alice back to nursery
Wednesday 4th - M*sicbugs
Thursday 5th - bangers and mash at D and A's and watched low noise fireworks!
Friday 6th - nursery again
Saturday 7th - another nursery party at a different soft play centre over lunchtime
Sunday 8th - lots of cooking and a quiet day at home
Monday 9th - work
Tuesday 10th - nursery and a bag!

There will be more details about some of these days, but I'm going to back date the posts to get them in the right places!!

MY BIRTHDAY! (AND SLEEP, AGAIN)

(yesterday!)

Alice said I was '3 too!' The cake had 'fork handles' (think 2 Ronnies) on it but 21 written on it. None of them were right, all too small and all made me laugh.

At times I did wonder whose birthday it was. We spent the morning at soft play with one of Alice's best friends and then went to her other best friend's house for tea in the afternoon! Then last night I went out for supper with GFN - Alice knew that I was going out but I daren't tell her who I was going with (after the grief I got following the pub lunch several weeks ago). Luckily she'll be seeing him this week.

I'm beginning to notice a pattern with sleep on the nights that I'm out for the evening. She went to bed at usual time, she was tired but not exhausted, she was crying before we left so I went up and resettled her (but it wasn't as easy as it usually is). When we got back I could see the visual monitor from the car and it was easy to see that she wasn't asleep or settled, so I went straight up to her and the moment she realised it was me she relaxed and snuggled down. She woke again as I went to bed and with all the disturbance of the evening I offered my bed, she accepted immediately (the night before she'd declined) and when she came into bed she demanded a cuddle and tried to sleep holding my hand and snuggled up to me. I don't think that there was any coincidence that she needed physical reassurance last night - which leaves me with very mixed emotions, sad that she still needs that level of reassurance but relieved that I can provide that reassurance.

A final note about my birthday - since Mum's death I've always struggled on my birthday, this year was significantly better, now I've got to get through the 12th.

MID AUTUMN FESTIVALS

Alice told me last night that it was time for bed, as I put her to bed she told me she needed a lie-in in the morning - even without that I knew she was tired. She slept til 8:30 this morning and we then had a gentle start to the day and Alice was delighted to have a very leisurely bath! Despite our gentle start she was tearful before we even made it downstairs and grumpy for the rest of the morning.

By lunchtime I had a humdinger of a headache and so all our plans were shelved. I was intending to stew this year's apple crop (which was very poor) and then make some mini apple pies - to eat for Mid Autumn Festival, family fruit in a round shape, I thought it appropriate, but it didn't happen. Instead Alice watched a film as I sort of snoozed. She had a cupcake after supper (which we've done every year), she stayed up late to look for the moon, but it was cloudy. We read 'We See the Moon' and talked about her birth family in China and Granny and Grandpa on the stars, we sent them all kisses to the sky. Then at bedtime I sang her 'I See the Moon' and explained that I used to sing it while I was waiting for her, she listened and then told me I was silly - one day she might understand!

We don't celebrate many Chinese festivals, but this is the one that always makes me very emotional - thinking of a birth family far away, wondering if they remember their beautiful baby and wonder what happened to her, wishing they knew she was loved and happy, my treasure.

(And the photos - each MAF from 2007 onwards, huge changes every year, she surely can't go on changing this much?)

MORE EVIDENCE!

We went to the zoo today. Almost 18 months ago we met M, C and L there.

The first photo is from our first visit - it's one of my favourites, I love seeing the girls as toddlers and the contrast between them whilst their body shaping is so similar. Remembering this photo I tried to get an equivalent photo of Alice today to act as a comparison, but she wasn't feeling too cooperative, but it's easy to see the change!

REMEMBERING

We sang 'Happy Birthday Grandpa', he would be 65 today, it's the 8th birthday we've remembered without him.

We went to A's birthday party today, it got me planning Alice's party as it will be at the same place. I came home and had a trial run at Alice's cake. I wasn't sure about the capacity of the shaped cake tin. When it was (eventually) cooked and Alice had gone to bed, I had another practice - icing it! Then I couldn't resist putting 3 candles down the middle and remembered Grandpa as I blew them out for him. The result of the cake test was fine, as usual the finer details are the bits that I need more practice at and I probably need to find a different way to do them.

Also remembering 25 years ago - was the day I started boarding school. That day is etched on my memory, most of all the devastation of being left there - I was well prepared for what was going to happen but I hadn't thought through actually being left there! We had a welcome tea with our tutor in the main dining hall, I remember Mum's horror when another parent (a famous rockstar's ex-wife) produced the embroidery silk and asked what it was for, Mum had spent many evening using the silk to embroider my initials on every piece of sports kit (and many more naming everything!) I can remember feeling very lost and following a girl from my form, she was tall and had blondish, curly hair - so she was easy to spot in a busy corridor!!

67

6 years since we celebrated, finally the 3rd August is getting easier to face but we did have an emotional day.

Remembered every day, not just the special ones.

2 YEARS AGO - TRAVELLING

Sitting in the first row on the aeroplane, facing backwards, all the way to China.

Beijing airport was timidating, our first experiences in China, intimidating being a foreigner in a country where nothing is easily understood to a Westerner and police carry guns. The airport was beautiful in its structure - glass and marble, light, bright, airey and shining clean. We managed to navigate our way from arrivals to departures (up several floors via a lift that was always full) and to our next carrier (who wasn't the one on the tickets!!) Not only that but via sign language I (me, hestitant, me) managed to communicate that we wanted seats together (and managed to get them together!) before sleeping through virtually the whole flight and missing our only glimpses of the Great Wall and the Yangtze River! (I spent lots of my conscious moments staring at and showing anyone who'd listen the photos of Whatshername, wondering how she'd be, how I'd cope and hoping we'd be OK.)

2 YEARS AGO

It was the night before I left for China, GFN had come over in the afternoon to swap some clothes for our luggage (in case any cases didn't arrive with us, luckily they all made every journey safely). In fact he wasn't GFN at that point (I was trying to save him for Little Sis, I think that last until the 3rd or 4th of July before I realised that he had to be Alice's GF!) Anyway N, over coffee, mentioned that with my surname Whatshername would need a neat and short first name - a good point and one that was the final straw for me deciding that Whatshername would be Alice - but having waited until 3 days before I met her to choose her name I decided that I'd wait and meet her before announcing it, in fact I met her, told her who I was and that I loved her and then asked her if she'd like to be called Alice?!

(And now I'm debating names again, but this time for Little Sis. There's already a shortlist and some names are new and others aren't. I've decided against some names, mostly others beginning with 'A' Annabel, Amelie, Anna . . .)

2 YEAR REFERRAL-VERSARY!

I'm never quite sure which day I should celebrate my referral - I found out that my date was the cutoff on 30th April, got confirmation of referral with very basic details (name, dob, province and after asking specifically I then found out that 'it' was a she!) on 2nd May and then 7 (long but happy) days later on 9th May I received the photos, paperwork and translation. But the 2nd of May was the day I feel had the biggest impact - the relief of final confirmation that I had a baby, the amazement that my baby was so young, the confusion about where Yunnan was (having watched and read about Chinese referrals for several years I had never heard of Yunnan), it was a very emotional day and the beginning of the best of my life.

Today I told Alice about the anniversary. We've been talking a lot about China and adoption recently, I'm not sure how much she really understands but she is beginning to parrot back my answers. Today we also 'bumped' into 1 of the other 2 girls who live in A'g who are 'adoctored' from China - she has a very similar name to Alice and is nearly 10 years older and she was one of the influential factors in my decision to adopt from China. Sometimes timings like this are too coincidental to be a coincidence.

2 WONDERFUL YEARS AGO

I woke up for the start of another normal week. I had a doctor's appointment and then I went on to aqua aerobics. The doc and my aqua friends were all aware that referral time was looming again, several people asked about the situation and I said that it could be soon but it might be another 2 or 3 months away.

It was a busy morning, I got home at noon and immediately rang my buddy 3CMum and refreshed RQ (a website for those following the Chinese Adoptive situation). C answered the phone I asked whether there was any news and as I did so RQ's leading post was that new referrals were arriving and that 1st Nov 05 was likely to be the cutoff, midway through asking C a question I blurted out . . . 'OMG I'm in!' or something like that! I could cry just remembering that lunchtime, it took 2 more days before I could confirm that I'd been referred a child and to discover that my baby was still so young and 7 days after that I finally got to look at my baby for the very first time, sitting in my car outside A'g sorting office before 7am!

The April 07 archive's here.

(Sadly that was 24 months ago and in the time since then just over 4 months more have been referred, my wait was 17 months (which was agony) but now some of those still in the queue have been waiting nearly 3 years and 2 months - my heart goes out to those people still waiting.)

EASTER AGAIN, STRESSED AND PANICKING AGAIN

2007 - I let myself believe the wilder rumours that I'd be in the next batch of referrals, it didn't happen, the CCAA only referred 2 days and that left me day 5 in the queue and behind a notoriously large 31st October. All of a sudden I was looking at potentially 3 or 4 more months of waiting and maybe having to return to school to start the following academic year. 3CMum tried to calm me down, but I couldn't listen, I couldn't let myself believe that it might be me the following month.

2009 - yesterday I received a letter that has stressed and panicked me, my homestudy for Little Sis has glaring omissions, omissions that my LA has known about for 3 months and seems to have down little to rectify. I thought I was weeks from my dossier going to Thailand, now I'm looking at having to redo so much of the dreaded financial statement as it will expire before getting to Thailand. So, yet again at Easter, I'm stressed, panicking and not listening to that very small voice that tells me it will all happen when the time is right.

AS ALICE WOULD SAY . . .

. . . 'Uh-oh!'

Yesterday after lunch (I was on the phone and trying to keep Alice in her highchair for a few moments longer while I finished the call - there's another post about parenting skills!!) I produced a bag of chocolate coins. As soon as she saw the coins she announced, 'Pee-pee!'

(I used chocolate coins as the incentive when trying to potty train - they didn't work, Alice would demand 'Cho-cut!' any time except when she'd earnt it! But obviously some connection was made!!)

All I can say is, 'Uh-oh!'

REMEMBERING

My step-father, Nick.

I said Goodbye 7 years ago tonight.

I can't hear fireworks without remembering that evening, Saturday 3rd November 2001, being told to get to the hospital as quickly as I could. I did, I was with him when he died. His death was a kindness at the end of a horrid, cruel illness.

He taught me so much. I miss him. I mourn the relationship that he would have had with Alice. But most of all I love him still.

ALICE'S BAPTISM - NOT FORGETTING LITTLE SIS

Sunday is the day that T (my SW) works on my HS.

Today he met with GFW and Aunty J - they were giving me a reference. T phoned after the meeting to reassure me that it went well - with the amount of things still to be done I was distracted and hadn't had time to worry, aside from the trust that I have in W and J!

While I was waiting for Alice I had a W*innie the P*ooh soft toy - I have several photos of important people and occasions including WTP to show that I was thinking of my baby.

I've bought an elephant for Little Sis, I bought it in July, today I noticed he has a wonky trunk. I chose an elephant as it is the national symbol of Thailand. Today was his first outing - he came to church, Alice held him, but I forgot to include him in the photos! Despite no photos Little Sis is never far from my mind.

I'm sure that some people wondered why the elephant was in church - now things will be a little clearer. I made a very short speech at Alice's baptism, so did GFW (outmanoeuvred by the other GPs who all passed the buck!) Fresh from meeting the SW GFW mentioned our current adoption journey to Little Sis - I'm not sure that everyone already knew about it but they do now!

Little Sis will one day know how long we waited, how hard we strived to bring her home and just how very much she is longed for.

NEVER FORGOTTEN

My Mum.

Today is the 5th anniversary of her death. I find the 10th (my birthday) is usually a harder day than the 12th.

This year things were a little easier - I miss Mum every day but I've got to a point where I can't regret her death. Her death was as she would have wished - quick and unexpected, very hard for me but hopefully not for her. Mum's death was the direct stimulus to begin my adoption of Alice - I am glad to have regained a positive outlook and once again have joy in my life, thanks to Alice. I can't regret Mum's death as I wouldn't have Alice - the 2 people I love most in my life and they never knew each other. Last year should have been a little easier (for Alice's presence in my life) however a very sick dog (who I shared with Mum) made it harder again.

Mum died on a Sunday evening. This year is the first time that this anniversary had fallen on a Sunday. I purposely chose this day to have Alice baptised. I wanted to turn a day with dreadful associations into a day of celebration. We prayed for Mum and Nick at the baptism. Never a day passes without thoughts of them both.

Today I smiled. My daughter is a joy and the light of my life - she's brought smiles, giggles, silliness and such happiness. Today we celebrated Alice and remembered Mum. Today was a good day, Mum and Nick must have been with us - the weather (after such a dreadful summer) was incredible, warm with a gentle breeze, we spent most of the party in the garden. Today I managed to celebrate and be thankful, the tears stayed away til this evening (I couldn't type this without tears). Mum would wish to be remembered with a smile, today I am a lot closer to being able to do that, the fate of the 12th has been changed.

Always remembered. Always loved. Always and forever.

MILESTONES

This morning we went out in the car and a childrens CD was playing. Alice doesn't seem to respond to these CDs but I keep hoping that one day she'll appreciate that I play them for her benefit, even more than that I hope that one day she'll actually join in. Today she did! Halfway through 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,' I realised that she was droning along at the end of the lines, I cried and replayed dear old Twinkle several times (nearly enough to learn the 2nd and 3rd verses, didn't even realise that there was more than 1 verse until recently!)

Never thought I'd cry to Twinkle or The Wheels On The Bus (reminds me of all the minibus travel in China, I think I sang it on nearly every journey - even had to post to the blog for help remembering more verses!!)

IT'S . . .

I can't believe that it's been 12 months.

I've been feeling very nostalgic over the last few days . . . remembering what I was doing and how I was feeling a year ago.

12 months ago - the terrifying nerves, wondering how the hand-over would go, how Alice and L would be, how M, C and I would cope. That day in Kunming, 2 special families were created (mine and theirs) and 1 extra special family (both of ours together including GFN) - the incredible process of intercountry adoption created an extra special link with another couple as we met our babies together and helped each other through those first dramatic yet wonderful days.

12 wonderful months later - the joy that Alice (and L too) has bought, the happiness, the laughter, the hope for the future. The link between our families, that friendship has been cemented in the time that we've been home, we just know so much about one another, understand so many things without explanations being necessary and then there's the link that our girls had before we knew them, so special, I am so lucky.

And the plans for Alice Day? . . . a quiet day at home, with friends coming round for a cuppa this afternoon . . . and a few presents (from Mummy, a few too many!) Then tomorrow we'll meet C and L for a trip to Longleat, lots of reminiscing and hopefully a few photo opportunities!! The meeting with L is not before time - Alice has been L obsessed in recent days - saying 'Hello L*' every morning to her photo in Alice's bedroom and asking whenever we leave the house - 'L*?'

NOSTALGIC MUMMY!

Remember this?

This the dress that I bought in Kunming's W@lm@rt nearly a year ago. Last year Alice wore it as a dress, this year it's a top - can't believe how much she's changed!! Sentimental me - I still love this top and the girl wearing it!

(Alice found this bracelet today - she was very proud to wear it this morning, she kept showing it to me for me to admire!!)

11 MONTHS

Not the best photo of Her Majesty, but I wanted to show the outfit as I thought she looked super cute in it!

11 months, incredible. I can't believe where the time has gone, I can't believe the changes in Alice and that the baby has gone to be replaced by this little being who learns so much so quickly and has such strong opinions!