Shot to the heart

I'm sitting in the living room, messing around on the laptop, and Rick (my oldest) is watching some TV show on his computer over in the office.  I hear a very out-of-tune rendition of the song "Mandy" coming from that general direction, and I look up at him across the half-wall with a quizzical look, and said, "That's an old Barry Manilow song."

"I know," he says.  "The main character in this is a vampire and he likes that song 'cause he was actually ALIVE when it came out."

Long silence.

I was alive when that song came out...

40/3=x???

Charlie got hired to help a lady rake leaves.  He was there for 3 hours.  When I went to pick him up, he proudly pulled out an envelope that contained $40 and showed it to me.  This seemed like the perfect time to do some real-life math.  (Charlie has trouble with word problems and scenario type math.) 

"So if you worked for 3 hours and earned $40, how much did you make per hour?"

He gives me a strange look.  "I don't have the calculator with me." 

"You don't NEED a calculator.  This is simple math; you can do it in your head."

He sits and thinks for a minute, and then he leans forward and starts WRITING IN THE DUST on the dashboard of the car....and still got the wrong answer.

So my question is, does this make a stronger statement about his failure to master word problems, or my failure to clean the car? 

The equation is still there, by the way. 

Charlie's first brush with the long arm of the law

Last night I let Charlie get up to 25 mph. Then he got pulled over.

We were doing some stop-n-go work down the truck bay of an industrial park not too far from home. The idea in stop-n-go work is to get him to learn to stop without snapping my neck. I had him take the car up to 25 mph and then hit the brakes enough to stop quickly but without skidding (that skill will be learned later, when there's snow) and then to let up a little just before the actual stop so we don't turn into bobbleheads.

I guess it WOULD have looked pretty strange to an observer. I didn't notice the observer hiding amongst the trucks. But he sure noticed us. After watching for a little while, he pulled out, and I had Charlie sit still until we figured out where this car was going, hopefully out of the bay. Instead, it drove straight towards us, turned on an in-dash flashing red/blue light, and pulled off slightly to the driver's side.

Rent-A-Cop. And he's asking Charlie questions, but not getting out of his car.

I leaned over Charlie to answer him, but he couldn't hear me, so I had Charlie put the car in park, got out, and walked over to his window, since he still wasn't about to get out of the car. In the car was a little old man hunched over the steering wheel, and it looked like his neck was frozen to his shoulders--he had to turn his whole body in order to look at me. He asked if everything was okay, and I explained that Charlie had just gotten his learner's permit and we came out here to practice since he wasn't ready for road traffic yet. I was bracing myself to be told this was private property, we couldn't do that, get lost or we'll get the real cops....but all he did was nod and say, "Okay." He rolled up his window and went back to where he had been lurking before.

Charlie was shaking and sweating when I got back to the car. I think Chinese orphans are instilled with a deep-seated fear of the police--Charlie has never been comfortable around cops. We continued on with our practice session and eventually went home.

When we got back to the house, I told Rick Charlie had been pinched by a cop. Charlie immediately--and VERY vocally--denied it. Told Rick the whole story in rapid-fire sign that Rick couldn't begin to understand (my sign-to-voice professor would be proud of me for interpreting that one!) and finished up with, "And I DID NOT get arrested!!!"

More Math Woes

I thought my math woes were over once the school moved Charlie to that pre-algebra class back in January. After all, the qualified people are now doing the job that I started, right?

Big sigh.

Charlie is now in Algebra I. He came home after the first week of school with some homework sheets with really bad grades. Very upset because he isn't understanding it. A lot of it boiled down to English (he doesn't understand the directions at the top of each grouping of problems, so he does the wrong thing to the equations), but some of it boiled down to stuff that he just plain didn't know. For example, it blew me away to discover what he thought was the difference between even and odd numbers: He had simply memorized 2,4,6,8, etc. but never knew there was an actual RULE to it, that if a number could be divided by 2 and the answer is a whole number, not a decimal or fraction, then it is even. His face lit up when the light bulb went on.

Last Tuesday was Back to School Night for parents. It was a real struggle to get from Baltimore to Frederick after work in time for this thing that starts at 6, but I made it, sort of. When I met with his Algebra teacher and expressed my concerns, we decided that it would be appropriate for me to have a copy of Charlie's algebra book, and she will send me the assignments they are doing so that I can reinforce them at home. Our concern is that since he was switched in the middle of the year, he missed out on the second half of the year in the general math class he was moved out of, AND he missed out on the first half of the year in the pre-algebra class he had been moved into. So we also got for me a copy of the pre-algebra book from last year and decided that I would have to catch him up by working with him on the first half of the book on the weekends.

Y'all remember that math and I don't exactly get along, right?

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This past weekend, we spent HOURS re-doing failed homework (she accepts re-dos for credit), studying for a test he had coming up, and starting on some of what he missed out on when he switched classes last year. Hours and hours. Felt like forever.

On Monday after he left for school, nervous about the test, I shot off an e-mail to his algebra teacher (a hearing woman, as it happens), mentioning that he seemed to understand all the stuff if the directions for each grouping of sentences are signed to him, not leaving him to depend on the English just yet and that his IEP specifically states that testing is to be done in sign, not English, so that his English skills don't hold him back in other areas.

She e-mailed back that she would do whatever it took to support him and help him be successful, and that he had actually spent some time with her after school getting clarification on some things they had done. (I had encouraged him to do this, but wasn't sure he would.)

She got back to me this afternoon to let me know how the test went: He got a 96%!!!

I sat there crying when I read that. He worked so hard this weekend trying to prepare for that test, and got to see it pay off for him.

Looks like it's going to be a long, hard year for both of us. I guess I'd better quit whining now and just get 'er done.

I'm so proud of that kid.

"Hit The Building"

Y'all can't say you haven't been warned: STAY THE HELL OFF THE SIDEWALKS! Charlie got his learner's permit yesterday morning, so it's just not safe to be out there any more.

He tried about a month ago, and was crushed when he failed it the first time. He was very quiet as we got into the car, so I stayed quiet while I was driving so he could lick his wounds without interference (especially since I got lost on the way home from MVA and was trying to figure out where I was). I didn't realize that my silence was killing him until he blurted out, "You're mad that I failed, aren't you?" Oh, heavens, child--no!!

He felt slightly better when he found out his big brother had also failed it the first time, but that was still cold comfort. Charlie isn't used to failing at anything. He only missed by one question, but that's still one too many.

Personally, I think it did him good to miss it the first time. He's so good at so many things, that he is starting to think life is his bowl of cherries and he gets a little big-headed at times. This humbled him a little.

We did some more studying and testing, and got another appointment set up with MVA. This time he only missed two questions, which is a pass. But get this: The deaf guy misses the question on HAND SIGNALS!!! What's up with THAT???

While we were waiting for the test to be graded, he was so nervous he was just about biting his nails, and when he explained to the interpreter that he had already failed it once, she told him, "Oh, that's nothing--most of the deaf I interpret for these tests fail it four, five, or six times before they finally get it!" All of a sudden, he's thinking getting it right on the second shot isn't so bad, after all.

I think a big part of that problem is that most of the deaf kids grow up in homes where the parents either don't sign at all, or have very limited sign, so the kids get their driver's training in classroom situations and don't have a lot of help at home in the studying and sample testing. Charlie all but slept with that stupid driver's handbook, nagging at me every day that he was home to go over it with him. Over and over and over and over and over again. And the MVA has sample testing on the web that I would interpret for him over and over and over and over again. (It changes the questions a little each time.) So he had a lot more in-depth understanding and practice for that test than most deaf kids have by the time they get to MVA.

Anyway, tonight was his first lesson. I took him out to an industrial park and let him do some stop-n-go work. Then I decided he should learn where the front and back of the car are. (I drive a station wagon.) You should have seen his face when I had him approach the concrete wall of one of the truck bays and told him to hit the building. I've never seen such a look of shock on his face. I ended up demonstrating for him how I wanted him to keep backing up slowly, bit by bit, until the car touched the building, so he could see and feel how much space he had to work with. Then I made him do it over and over again (both forwards and backwards) until he was able to stop within a few inches of the wall without touching it. I think he did a pretty good job.

Curbs, not so much. But it was starting to get dark, and we were both hungry and tired, so it was time to call it quits. There'll be more time this weekend and many, many weekends to come to practice some more.

Be careful out there!!!

Let My Words Be Few

He's driving me nuts. I admit it.

First it was English. Then we added algebra. Then we started on the driver's handbook. Then about three weeks into a lovely lazy summer, the school sent home papers explaining a summer reading project and poster that the kids had to complete and bring back to school with them, so we had to pick a book and start reading that together.

Now that the algebra dropped out, I'm okay with teaching all that other stuff. I was never a big math afficionado to start with, so I couldn't have been happier once the school figured out how to resolve that situation. (See January's posts "Baby Einstein" and "No More Mama Einstein.")

But now Charlie has come home from karate camp, where he spent a week with hearing people, and he has reached a momentous decision: He wants to learn speechreading.

But wait--there's more! He doesn't just want to learn to READ it--he wants to learn to SPEAK!!

We've already gone there with the school. They evaluated him and said he is so profoundly deaf that he does't have enough residual hearing left to work with, and they agreed with me that since he is so smart, his energies were best used to focus on his academic subjects rather than hours and hours of speech therapy just to get out a few understandable phrases.

So I reminded him of all this--they aren't going to put him in that program since he wants to go to college.

Yeah, yeah, I know all that. That's why YOU'RE going to teach me.

'Scuse me? Do I LOOK like a freakin' speech teacher????

So now, in addition to the English, and the summer book and poster, and the driver's handbook, I am being shanghaied into teaching Charlie to speak.

Can I just point out that I'm not exactly TRAINED for this?

Sometimes I have no idea how to explain to him how to make a particular sound. It's a little frustrating for both of us, because he will run through every possible permutation of sound that he can think of making with that particular mouth/tongue position until he stumbles across the right combination, and then when I get excited and say "That's it!" he doesn't remember what it was he was doing to get that sound.

So far he has learned to say Aymom and Pop-Pop (his grandparents' nicknames that Rick gave them), Mama, mooooo, Bama (his best friend's name), and he's working on "How are you?" He has the "how" part down, but r's and y's are a little harder and we need some more practice there.

The day he learned to say "Aymom," it was hard to keep him from putting a glottal stop in betwen the two syllables. At one point, we decided we needed a break, so I leashed up the dogs and headed outside for a while. The dogs and I strolled onto the path that leads back around behind our house, and as we were approaching the house from the back, I heard what sounded like someone vomiting. As I got closer and could see up alongside the house, I realized it was Charlie. He had gone outside to practice so he didn't disturb Rick, and he was vomiting the word Aymom--the A sound was coming from deep in his stomach, and the mom sound was the projectile. I very quickly turned away so he wouldn't see me howling. I had just about gotten myself back under control by the end of the walk, but then I tried to explain it to Rick, and the giggles started all over again.

Today we started on the "how are you" stuff, and he had no trouble getting the how down pat. But then he started playing with it. He would say it in a variety of ways, and sometimes it would sound like a kid who had just sucked helium out of a balloon, and sometimes it would sound like a guy trying to project a deep, sexy voice. I'm sitting in my chair with my back to him while he's in the dining room practicing, and I'm hoping he can't see my shoulders shaking from the laughter. It just sounds so damned CUTE!

Maybe I DO look like a freakin' speech teacher--to him, anyway.

Down-Time - Part II

I dropped Charlie off at school yesterday (Sunday) around noon for football camp. By about 5 pm, I get a text message that says, "I feeling boring." Wow--big change from his excitement over karate camp!

Later, before bed, I get another text message that says, "I hard work football."

I'm not sure how to interpret that one. Is he saying he's working hard at it? Or that he feels it's hard work? Hmmmm....

Today at work, I got a call from the athletic trainer saying I need to come pick him up. What the huh?????

It seems he was complaining that his hip was hurting him. That surprised me--the wound had been healed up, and the doctor had cleared him for both karate camp and football camp. And Charlie had successfully finished out the entire week of karate camp without complaining of it hurting so why all of a sudden is it starting now? Is it just that he doesn't care for football camp and this is his way of getting out of it? She said it seemed like he was putting his all into it, and she was sorry to see him go, because he was showing some real promise.

I asked her to take a look at his hip and tell me how it looked. She hadn't realized he had something wrong there, she just thought it was hurting. When she saw his surgical wound, I heard a little gasp. She said it looked scabbed over.

There was no scab when I dropped him off. His skin had been smooth and healed--a red scar, but healed. But I couldn't seem to get to the bottom of it by questioning her and having her question him. I was going to have to see the words come off his hands in person.

Rick and I piled into the car tonight and headed out to Frederick to get him.

Poor Charlie. It turns out that the hip had opened up last night during their first session, but he didn't say anything to anyone. He soaked off the scab in the shower and hoped it would get better overnight. But the next morning, they were practicing tackles, and he was getting hit repeatedly right on that spot. When he decided he couldn't finish the drill, the coach asked him if he didn't like football, and Charlie finally showed him the wound. Coach told him he couldn't keep playing on that, it would just keep getting worse. So Charlie made the sensible decision that he would have to come home. Wasn't a problem at karate camp, because he wasn't getting hit and was careful to lead off with his other side while fighting so he didn't get kicked there.

I thought he would be really disappointed about it, because he had been talking nonstop about wanting to join the football team, but he seems to be taking it very matter-of-factly. He's not even sure he will go back to it next summer, because there is an age limit of 18 to play during the season, and if he goes next year, he will be playing JV, and then will turn 18 before getting to the varsity team.

I guess I won't be a football mom after all, and Charlie will never have one of those multi-million dollar contracts with the NFL.

That's okay--I'm a karate mom at heart, anyway. And it sure will make our schedule this fall easier to coordinate.

So much for the down time and that list...

Down Time - Part I

So Charlie left on August 2 for karate camp--a whole week of nothing but eat, sleep, karate; 3-4 workouts every day. I wasn't entirely sure about this, because he would be there for a whole week with all hearing people and no interpreter, not able to understand when an instructor was speaking to a whole group of people.

Yes, I know--he grew UP in that kind of environment, what's the big problem? Well, he can actually communicate now and has things to say and an insatiable curiosity to know what's going on around him. How will it affect him, being thrust back into an environment where he can't get his point across clearly? Will it frustrate him?

You wouldn't know I had any reservations when I was on the phone trying to convince the lady running the thing that it would be fine, and I'd explain the schedule to him ahead of time, and teach him all the important words I could think of so that he could spell them if it came down to trying to write back and forth. She had misgivings, but I encouraged her to speak with Charlie's head instructor and a few others who had worked with him and let me know her decision--he'd be fine.

She bought it.

I had a list of things as long as my arm I wanted to accomplish during the down-time while he was away. It can be incredibly draining sometimes with Charlie around. There is no down-time. The minute I look like I'm just reading for pleasure or playing with e-mails rather than working or studying, he is prodding me to do something with him: "Help me study the driving book. Help me read my story for the summer reading program. Help me learn algebra. Help me...."

And you know what? I help him. I would feel immensely guilty if I didn't, because he takes such joy in learning. This is what I adopted him for--to give him every opportunity it is in my power to give him, just as I gave to Rick.

And after I dropped him off in Rockville at the bus that would take him four hours away, I sat at home biting my nails down to nubs, and accomplished not a single thing on that list.

What was I thinkin'? He was fine.

When I picked him up today, every other sign off the boy's hands was "wonderful" and "awesome." He had the time of his life! He came back knowing the forms he needed for the next two belt tests and part of the first black-belt form, and he learned how to use several weapons, and someone apparently beat him enough that he learned how to look mean while doing his forms, and his team won third place in the team competition so he has (another) trophy to add to his little collection, and....

According to one of the adults I talked to, Charlie was the darling of the camp, and in no time at all was teaching sign language classes. There were two ladies there who knew fingerspelling and some basic signs, so he taught them some more, and they became his own personal little harem of Charlie's Angels.

He is already looking forward to next year.

I have to learn to let go. This week was hard. I was so depressed, I nearly started the process for adopting another one. And it's about to get worse--he is only home for one night, and then leaves tomorrow morning for football camp at school. He will be there for 3 whole weeks. Not as nerve-wracking, since it's a deaf camp and he will be in his own element communication-wise, but certainly every bit as lonely here on the home front.

I have a list as long as my arm of things to do during the down-time...

Finally able to breathe again

*
"That bump is starting to look funny."
What bump?
"The bump on my hip."

A few months ago, Charlie had shown me what looked like a mosquito bite on his hip. Who gets bent out of shape about a mosquito bite? Not this mommy--I grew up covered in bug bites 'cause I didn't have the sense to go in when the sun went down. So I told him to keep it clean and it should go away in a couple of days, try not to scratch at it.

Never heard anything more about it. Until two weeks ago when the above conversation kicked things off.

I examined it, and decided we had cause for concern. It had grown to about the size of 2-3 peas clustered together, it was hard as a rock, and it had turned purple. And you could move it around in there. Time for professional help.

One small problem--I couldn't find a dermatologist at Hopkins (where I work) who could see him in a reasonable time frame. An adult dermatologist could have gotten him in, but because his legal age was only 16, he has to go to a pediatric dermatologist. (Remember, there is a discrepancy between his physical age and his legal adoption age.) The pediatric dermatologist was booked up into late September already. And they refused to let me schedule him with an adult dermatologist, even when I explained that physically he is already an adult.

Okay, phooey on Hopkins (maybe not in those exact words). I started looking outside the hallowed halls of Hopkins. And it seems like every dermatologic surgeon in Baltimore City and surrounding region was booked into September for new patient appointments.

I finally got the bright idea of going farther afield and found a dermatology practice in Frederick that could actually see him the coming week for the initial appointment.

The wonderful news was that when the doctor heard how far we had come and understood that we already knew it would have to be surgically removed, he actually agreed to do the surgery ON THE SPOT!!! That's practically unheard-of.

They excised the mass that same afternoon. The chunk of tissue he took out looked huge to me--he took really wide margins all around the mass just in case, so the incision was very long. Charlie went home feeling no pain. The local anesthetic they had given him lasted a long time. He didn't start feeling pain until just before bedtime. Once it hit, though, he wasn't real happy. It was reasonably well controlled with just ibuprofen, but it was a week before Charlie stopped asking for pain medicine.

And a week later, the pathology came back: Dermatofibroma. Benign.

Whew. I didn't realize that I'd been pretty much holding my breath for a week.

Charlie is doing great now, chafing a bit because he can't practice his karate for 2 weeks while the incision heals, but behaving himself for the most part and healing very well.

No more "mosquito bites," please!

Shredding his little heart out

Charlie likes taking things apart. Sometimes he takes apart things I really don't want taken apart. We finally came to a compromise. I would keep an eye out on my local freecycle list and when someone advertised a non-working appliance of some sort, I would go fetch it. Charlie could take those apart, and then once he figured out whatever he was trying to figure out, he could just toss them.

The problem is, Charlie is starting to fix things. I picked up a portable boom-box that the owner said the CD player was broken on. I have no idea what he did, but all it took was a screwdriver. The CD player on the boom box works.

Hmmm, this could get interesting.

I was tired of taking mail with my address on it to work to shred, but too cheap to buy a paper shredder. Yesterday someone put up a shredder on freecycle saying that it was working, but all of a sudden now it wasn't, didn't know why, not interested in trying to find a repairman, wasn't worth the cost to fix, and if anyone wanted it, come get it, maybe the trash can it sits on would still be of use.

So I answered the post and went out to get it today after church. I told Charlie that he could do whatever he wanted to it, but once he was done and ready to throw it out, don't throw out the trash can, I can use that.

We picked up groceries after picking up the shredder. When we got home, he was so eager to crack that thing open, he ran in the house and started looking for the screwdriver. Yo! China Boy!!!! Get your butt out here and help mama with the groceries!

After he finished helping out, he found the screwdriver and went to town. Next thing I know, there are little screws and pieces spread out all over the dining room table. I decide I'm going to just ignore the whole thing and let him have his fun. I started peeling and chopping veggies that I was putting into a pot of homemade chicken soup. After a few minutes, Charlie gets up and moves across the room. I figured he'd gotten bored with it....then I heard a button click and a loud whirrrr, and Charlie signs and shouts PAH!!! He had gotten it working. I pointed at the basket where the mail remains go to wait for transport to the office shredder, and he was overjoyed to have something to shred in his new toy. This is a nice shredder!

The boy is now 2 for 2.

Got any appliances you want fixed?

Busted Buses

For the past week, Charlie and I have been poring over bus schedules for the Howard County Transit System, learning which lines come near our development and where they go, how to read the schedule charts so he can figure out when they go and come back. Tonight it was time for our first field trip.

The whole idea is to make him more independent. He's home all day with nothing to do but talk to his friends on the videophone and watch TV or read (and his reading level is still somewhat limited), so I thought it would be nice if he could get out and about somewhat. Especially since the libraries are some of his favorite haunts.

Older brother Rick warned us the buses aren't always reliable, sometimes early, sometimes late, sometimes don't show up at all. He would know; after all, he used to depend on those buses to get to work. That makes him an expert.

So, when I got home from work tonight, Charlie met me at the front of the development and we went out to the bus stop. I showed him the correlation between the schedule printout and the different color lines shown on the sign for the bus stop. He gets it.

We get on the bus and pay the fare. He gets it.

We get off the bus at the library. He gets it.

Finished our business at the library, and go back outside to catch the return bus. He read the schedule correctly to figure out what time to be at the bus stop.

But the bus didn't come. And Charlie didn't get it.

There was a guy waiting there with us who had been waiting for the previous bus, as well, and THAT one never showed up, either. After waiting (and chatting) a while, I decided phooey on this, because the next (and last) bus wasn't due for another hour and a half. I called Rick, the expert, and asked him if he could come fetch us.

He had just finished cooking his dinner, and had to shove it in the fridge to heat up again once we got back. This made him none too happy. I braced myself for the inevitable "I-told-you-so's."

While we were waiting for Rick, the guy called the 1-800 number for customer service for the bus line, and they told him the bus had been in an accident. Yeah, sure--wonder how many times a day they use that excuse!

When he pulled up, I asked if he could give our new friend a ride to the MARC train station--it was only one exit out of our way and would take 3 minutes, tops. He was rather surly about it, which is unusual for him. Then as he peeled out of the parking lot, he made the comment, "...and don't say jack about my driving. I'm doing you a favor."

Really not like him to be so overtly rude, especially in front of other people like that, so I said, "You're in a really foul mood, aren't you?"

He complained, "Well, I had the fork halfway to my mouth. I'm starving!"

I merely nodded and said, "So are we...that's why we called. Next bus isn't due until after 9 pm and we haven't had dinner, either." He grumbled, but shut up and drove.

We got to the train station, and I directed him to the proper building and then turned around to the back seat, where the guy was sitting with Charlie, and I said (and signed, for Charlie's benefit) "Bye, I hope you get your car back!" (It had been towed.)

He said, "Me, too, and thank you so much for the ride to the train!"

Whereupon Rick turned around and yelled, "Holy crap, you can HEAR!!!!"

The whole time Rick was sitting there bitching about being hungry and having to come get us, he thought the guy was some deaf friend of Charlie's who couldn't hear him.

He laughed halfway home. Thank God it put him in a better mood. It improved his driving, too. :P

Am I Blue?

Tonight was Charlie's blue belt test. Needless to say.....

Stop, Thief!!!

More from the darker side series: One of the things I learned during my pre-adoption training is that if the child comes from a hard environment into what he perceives as a fantasy world where everything seems perfect, he (or she) will work very hard to be perfect so he can fit in. The child is deathly afraid of being sent back, and so becomes the perfect little angel. Always agreeable, always helpful, always...perfect.

But he can't stay perfect forever, and the point at which most kids break is six months. At that point, they start wondering whether we could possibly love them for their REAL selves, and they start pushing the envelope and acting up to test us. Their mental process at that point works something like this: "Well, they might not love me if they really knew who/what I am, and although I like it here, I just know they'll send me back someday if they knew how really bad I am--after all, my REAL parents did that. So if I show them now what I'm really like, at least I KNOW they'll send me back, and I'm the one in control of the situation, I won't be caught by surprise, 'cause I know what they'll do."

Heart-breaking, isn't it? Children actually believe that they did something bad to cause their birthparents to abandon them. What they don't realize is that WE ARE THE REAL PARENTS in this case, and we're onto them. We have to love them through this time and prove that they aren't going anywhere.

In Charlie's case this was, thankfully, short-lived.

On the dot of six months (right on schedule!) one day I had the sensation that some money was missing from my wallet. I never carry a great deal of cash, and honestly usually don't know down to the dollar what's in there, but I just felt like something was missing. So I decided to pay better attention. Sure enough, within a few more days, a $10 bill went missing, and this time I knew it was gone. I had last seen it the evening before, and shortly after that had stopped for gas. Charlie usually gets my card out of my wallet for me as we pull up to the pump, so I had a pretty good hunch when and where it had gone missing.

I was at my office, and I have videoconference ability to reach Charlie from there. Still, just for due diligence's sake, I called oldest son Rick to make sure he hadn't borrowed it, though he always lets me know if he needs to borrow anything. He hadn't. So, I called Charlie to ask if he knew anything about it. He said that he bet it fell out of my wallet and rolled under the seat of the car, and he'd be happy to check once I got home.

Yeah, right. My suspicion is that he would have gone to look for it while "palming" the bill so that he could miraculously produce it.

Well, I was headed to school after work that night and wouldn't be back until he was asleep.

When I got home from school, I did check under the seat of the car, just to be absolutely sure it wasn't there. Then I came in the house and talked to Rick to fill him in on the sitch, and said "Go get him up."

A sleepy, bleary-eyed Charlie comes down the stairs. I asked again about the $10, and got the same story as earlier--it must have fallen under the seat of the car, and if I would let him go change into his clothes, he'd go out and look for it.

Hmmm.....lemme 'splain somethin' here, kid. First, I looked under the car seat already, and guess what? It isn't there! Now let me demonstrate something. Here's my wallet. See how my cards are in the snap section, and the money is in the zip section? That means that the money was zippered into this section and couldn't get out because you only opened the snap section to get the card out for me. Oh, but let's just suppose I accidentally left the zipper section unzipped. Gosh, the darned paper money just won't fall out! (I'm shaking the wallet upside-down really hard at this point.) And gee, let's look at this--if somehow a bill did fall out (I pulled one free and let it fall), IT DOESN'T ROLL. So it isn't going under the car seat.

Okay, now I think we've established that the money did not fall out and roll under the car seat. I want to get to the bottom of this, and it's late, and I want to go to bed, too, so I will simply tell you that if you lied to me, yes, you will be punished. But if you CONTINUE to lie to me, the punishment will be even greater--you will not be going to deaf camp. So, I'm going to ask you one more time: What do you know about the $10 missing from my wallet?

I unzipped the wallet while you were pumping gas and saw the money in there and took it and put it in my pocket and I have it upstairs and if you let me get up I'll go get it right now and give it back.

He sang like a canary. Who needs waterboarding????

Yes, he was punished for the initial lie, so that he would know that misdeeds carry consequences. But he got to go to camp, and he was still entrusted to get the card out for me when we pulled into the gas station, although he knew I was keeping closer watch on the money in there.

Most importantly, we ended the night with a hug and "I love you" signs after the tears and threats were over, and he felt secure not only that the rules were in place and enforced, but that he wasn't being sent anywhere, ever. No matter what.

East Coast Tournament

Charlie competed today at the Eastern Regional Karate Championships. This is where martial artists from New York down to Florida converge on Rockville, Maryland to compete for bragging rights on being the best on the East Coast.

Last year was Charlie's first time there, and he left empty-handed after underestimating how hard it was to go up against the best. This year, he went in with a little more determination. I think he still underestimated it some, since he won all three first-place trophies at the state tournament a couple of weeks ago. He figured he'd just walk in and clean up again. Well, it didn't happen quite that way.

But he did win the third place trophy in kata! He's definitely making a name for himself. To win anything at all in this tournament is really a big deal. (I never won anything there.)

Here's a picture of the trophy and the trophy winner. If this is just the third-place trophy, can you imagine how big the first-place trophy is??? These are serious trophies! Charlie is thrilled to have one to adorn his mantel.

His next belt test is the second week of June. Hopefully he will get his blue belt then. Feel free to leave a blog comment to encourage him to study and practice hard--I'll be happy to interpret what he doesn't understand!

Here's a video of the third-best green belt kata performance on the East Coast:

Food Fight

Continuing with the series of posts about some of the challenges we came up against, I thought I'd mention an issue that we had that I wasn't prepared for despite all the "training" I went through. One of the things I learned during the prep period for the adoption was that orphans have food issues. Lots of food issues. It's not unusual for orphans to hoard food. The usual scenario in an orphanage is for the food to be set out, and the kids who are fastest get the most to eat, the others not so much. Since the kids aren't always confident that they'll get enough, they try to hide food when they can get away with it. So even when they get adopted, they aren't always sure what's going on, and even though they may get enough food at a meal to feel full, they still aren't confident that there will be more later, and they continue to hide or steal food to store up.

Charlie spent 11 years in that environment, and I found out from someone who knew him back then that yes, Charlie was fast. He got plenty of food--and promptly started passing it out to the little kids. Charlie has a soft spot for the young ones. Knowing all this, I expected him to have food issues. I was prepared for that. But they didn't surface the way we were expecting.

To start with, Charlie liked good, healthy foods and lots of them. But he never got into the junk food scene. He was utterly convinced that eating any sweets at all makes you fat. Cake? An invention of Satan. But fruits, vegetables, rice, noodles, meats, eggs? Bring 'em on!! He ate, and ate, and ate, and never seemed to really gain a spare ounce on his frame. That's when I realized how fast he was growing. For a Chinese kid, he was turning into a giant. They thought he was tall when I adopted him, but in the space of four months, he had grown three inches, and before his first year here was out, he was five inches taller. He is now taller than I.

He started coming home from school with headaches. I didn't make the connection to food right away--when my other son had started having chronic headaches in school, it was because he was dealing with a difficult social scene and didn't want to be there, so naturally I started trying to find out what about school was bothering Charlie. He said nothing was wrong. He just had headaches.

One day the school called me and said he had a fever and joint aches, I needed to come get him. So I went and picked him up. By the time I got there, the fever was gone, but he was still achy. The next day, he was still achy, but had no other symptoms whatsoever. But he was ravenous, and when he made a comment about breakfast and lunch at school being very light, something clicked in my brain.

Charlie was dorming just a couple of nights a week. On the days and nights he was home, no problem. He could eat as much as he wanted for breakfast, and then even though lunch was light, he got home from school early enough that he could eat another meal. Then he'd have yet another meal when I got home from work and made dinner. And THEN he'd eat something, usually fruit, before bed. But on the nights he was dorming, he didn't get that bedtime snack, he didn't get enough at breakfast, and lunch was light. By the time dinner came around, he had a headache because he wasn't getting enough calories to sustain the wild growth spurt his body started once he was getting enough food on a regular basis.

That explained the joint aches and constant injuries, too. His body was growing so fast that the growth plates at the ends of the long bones in the arms and legs were soft and weak. Playing hard was putting too much stress on them during this spurt, so they ached.

What really made sense once I realized all this was his hunger pains. Charlie had grown up under-nourished and growth-stunted, but because it was constant, what he lived with was an ongoing, gnawing sense of hunger. But once he started eating more and growing suddenly, when he got hungry, he was hungry RIGHT NOW and had to have food RIGHT NOW because he would start getting sharp stomach pains if he didn't.

He was literally in more pain from hunger now than he had ever been in the past.

Time for Mama Bear to take action. I promptly dashed off an e-mail to his social worker at the school and to his teacher, explained the situation and Charlie's past experiences (they were unaware of any of this), and they agreed that if I were to send in a bag of healthy foods in his luggage on dorm days, they would give him extra times throughout the day and evening to be able to eat some supplemental meals.

That solved the problem, and that situation lasted for several months. By the time Charlie started high school, his growth had leveled off some and he was eating much more normal-sized meals and not as many of them, so he has been managing just fine with dorming at the high school without having to take any supplemental food.

It just hurts to think of the constant sense of hunger he used to know, and to watch him back in the days when he would feel physical pain from sudden hunger. It hurts even more to remember the faces of all of his friends that I saw at the orphanage and know that they are still living with that and there's nothing I can do for them.

So if you're skeptical when someone tells you to clean your plate, that there are starving children in China, the answer is yes -- there really are.

Cleaned Up!

We interrupt the "dark side" blog series to bring you a public service announcement: Charlie attended the local level karate tournament today and cleaned up ALL THREE first-place trophies (kata, sparring, and jujitsu) for his division. That's my boy!

He has another tournament at the end of April (this is the entire East Coast tournament), and then in June he will hopefully test for his next belt level (blue).

The meaning of courage

Charlie is one of the bravest people I know. Maybe even THE bravest.

Up to now, a lot of my blog since Charlie has joined our family has been all the funny stuff that happens when four cultures (American, Chinese, hearing, and deaf) collide. The blog was an affirmation that melding that many cultures can work, and indeed it has. But has it all been a bed of roses? Not by a long shot. My friend Jen (author of the Four Little Hawks blog on my blogroll) recently opened up about the issues and problems she is facing with her children, two of whom were adopted from China, and one of those two who is deaf. Her openness and willingness to share have given me courage to talk a little here about some of our darker moments and discoveries...not as a sympathy-getter, but more to show other adoptive parents or those considering adoption that even the greatest success stories have those dark times, and we get past them and can still consider our experience a success.

I'm going to start a series of blog posts, a little bit at a time, and each will deal with some of the issues we have run up against, some of which I was prepared for and expecting, and some of which totally blind-sided me. But in dealing with each of them, I have come to not only love but respect this child more and more, and I am sometimes in awe of the fortitude he had.

I knew the day Charlie signed his Chinese name to those papers in court that he had a lot of courage, but I really had no clue then just how much. He, the product of a society without faith, took an incredible leap of faith that day, and I can only now appreciate just how much he was risking in his own mind.

It was different for Charlie than for most other Chinese adoptions. For most orphans, the choice is taken out of their hands. Some loving couple here in the U.S. or elsewhere sees the child's profile, feels a stirring in their hearts, and whether they acknowledge it as a call from God or just call it fate, they somehow know that they are supposed to go get that child. They make all the decisions; the child has no clue what is going on until the day the staff at the orphanage take the child to some far-away city, sign over custody to these strangers, and walk away and leave the child with these people who look and smell different, and eat way different foods, and even use funny-looking toilets that these kids have never seen before and are sometimes terrified of.

But if the child is over 10, it's a whole new story. Children over 10 have to AGREE to the adoption in court before a judge. The deaf ones, especially the younger ones, usually don't even know what they're agreeing to, because they have never gone to school and they get by with whatever home signs they create for themselves at the orphanage, which doesn't exactly lend itself to in-depth conversations when they are the only deaf children there in a sea of hearing children. The staff usually don't learn any more "sign" than what is needed to give the child orders regarding personal hygiene. So they certainly can't tell this child that he or she is about to be adopted and will need to give permission. The child signs the papers with the Chinese equivalent of an X (an inked thumbprint), because he also has never learned to write, and it is pretty much the same as the other adoptions at that point, because now the child is committed and the parents are making all the decisions.

But Charlie--he had been sent to school, he could read and write, and he could hold in-depth coversations. Not with the orphanage workers, because they never did learn sign. They simply got two inches from his face (as though his sight were the problem) and spoke very loudly (like that would help him hear better) and expected that he could read their lips. But with the kids and teachers at the deaf school--ah, there communication could be had.

What I just found out not too long ago, what left me in awe of this kid's resilience, is that once the word was out that Charlie was to be adopted, by an American family at that, a campaign was set afoot to persuade him to not agree to the adoption. Teachers at the school told him and the other children that Americans adopt kids to use them as servants and then kill them. Giving a small element of credence to the story were recent articles about one family who starved their adopted Russian child to death and another family that abused their adopted child and beat the child to death. (The starvation episode was actually here in Maryland, 2005.)

Can you imagine the pressure? The only adults he's ever been able to truly communicate with are telling him not to agree to this because he will end up dead. The other kids are telling him the same thing.

Here I am, literally on the other side of the world, with no clue of the pressure he is under over there. I'm dealing with my own set of pressures here, stalking FedEx delivery personnel, driving the people at my adoption agency nuts. Then a miracle happened, and I found a liaison, someone who could get word to Charlie for me, someone he would occasionally sneak out and visit with while he was "home" at the orphanage on the weekends.

And so the letters started. (See the blog during the timeframe of about July/August of 2006 to December 2006 if you don't know what I'm talking about here.)

Now Charlie is getting it from both sides: People at the school are telling him don't go, but these letters...this person he has never met is saying he will have equal status in the family as her other son? He will have not only responsibilities, but equal rights?

He's torn. He wants to believe the letters, he really does. But then he goes back to school for the coming week, and they're at him again--don't do it, you'll be killed. And they have printouts of news articles about Americans killing their adopted children to back it up. But then he goes back to the orphanage, and there's another letter...this woman is writing to him faithfully, keeping him informed on the delays, telling him details about life over there. Maybe this family would be different from the ones the people at school are telling him about?

Somehow, he got a defiant streak in him and decided to go ahead with it. But he didn't tell them. He never did get to tell them, because one weekend when he went back to the orphanage, they simply didn't send him back to school, because the adoption date was imminent. Once the CCAA had approved the adoption, it was a definite, and they didn't need to spend the money trying to educate this one any longer, they could just keep him there and wait until it happened, and let the new parents take on the expense of educating him.

I have no way of knowing what his decision would have been had he not received those letters, but I thank God for the angel that was our go-between, because I believe that tipped the balance in my favor. Charlie signed those papers knowing there was a chance that he could end up abused or worse, figuring that if that happened, he would just try to run away and survive as best he could--in a country where he knew nobody and nothing.

What is scary, and has not yet come up in conversation, is this: What about his life there was so awful that he was willing to take that chance?

We got into a discussion recently about what his future would have been there and what it is here. He thinks that when he aged out of the orphanage, they would have tried to keep him on as hired help, because he was pretty handy and industrious about cleaning things and fixing things. But he understood that was the best-case scenario. (If you don't get that reference, read the blog post titled "The future of deaf orphans in China.") When he first got here, he had no clue how far he could reach. His big aspiration in those days was to be a cook in a Chinese take-out restaurant. Then, because we kept telling him "deaf can, deaf CAN--this isn't China where deaf can't," he moved up to wanting to OWN the restaurant. Now he's talking about being the engineer who plans it. He's knocking himself out at school so that he can learn enough to be accepted to NTID, a technical college for the deaf, where he can try for an engineering degree. Deaf CAN.

He found the courage to sign those papers on 12/28/06. That's really all that matters.

I have just been summoned--he wants to read me a story.

I'm so in awe of this kid.

A stunning piece of writing

I was checking out Cody's parents' blog to see how they were doing now that the rush of Cody's wake and funeral were over with and reality starts to settle in, and noted that Mickey had linked to the blog of a friend of his who had written a post entitled "Goodnight Moon" after leaving the viewing.

Her post is a stunning and evocative piece of writing asking--and trying to answer--some of the questions that arise when a child dies. I'll link it here in case anyone is interested.


Goodnight Moon

Rest in peace, Cody.

Norah has her forever family!

As Cody's family lays him to rest, Norah's new life is just beginning--Glenn and Lori finally got their arms around their little girl, and though it was a bit of a rocky start, she seems to be settling in well now, and the pictures on their blog are simply priceless. She's a real princess, and Glenn and Lori seem to understand well the trauma the transition brings for the child. They're doing everything right, and it's obviously paying off big after just one day.

What an awesome love story....

Update

Cody died this morning. Please pray for Mickey and Diane as they deal with the grief that no parent should ever have to face.

Prayers for Cody and Norah

For those who follow our story and believe in prayer, I have two requests for you.

One is a little boy named Cody who is dying of cancer. I have been following his dad's blog for a while, and I just listed it over in the blogs I'm following. Do not read this if you're looking for happily ever after stories, because the situation no parent should ever have to face is unfolding for this family. Cody has deteriorated so much recently that they are now in what they call memory-making mode. They just returned from a week at the beach, and before they left, Mickey had to sign the DNR paperwork at the hospital Cody is normally treated at so that the paperwork could be filed at the nearest hospital to where they were staying during their trip. Now they're back, and Cody went straight from the airport to the hospital and is not doing well. I think they are at the point where the prayers are needed for strength for the family to get through what is ahead and comfort once that part is over--miraculous healing does not seem to be part of God's plan for this youngster. Please pray for them as they face the deterioration and loss of their son. The ending of Mickey's post titled "80 to 30" just tore my heart out.

On a happier note, Glenn and Lori are leaving this week to go get Norah. I blogged about them earlier in January--this is the couple who is adopting a deaf Chinese girl with a heart problem. They have come close to rounding up what they need to make the trip. They will probably need to get a loan to cover the remaining amount, but they have managed between saving themselves and donations from very generous people to put together all but $2000 of the $10k they needed to make this happen. (Any last minute donations would, I'm sure, be gratefully appreciated!) I'm looking forward to following their blog while they're over in China, and I can't wait until Norah has a home and family of her very own. Their blog is also listed in the blogroll on the left.

Please keep both of these families in your prayers, one going through unutterable sadness and the other about to experience profound joy.

I hear you knocking....

So today Charlie and I are sitting at the table, reading a story. More accurately, he's reading to me. We do this as a supplement to whatever they're teaching him in school, because he just soaks up new vocabulary words from doing this. The real challenge is not whether he can identify all the words in the sentence, but whether he understands the sentence or paragraph once he has signed it.

So one sentence in today's story used the word "knock." I have an aversion to just giving him the sign for a word he doesn't know. I prefer to have him try to figure it out, whether through telling a story using the word, or pantomiming the concept. So, I gave him the situation of arriving at a friend's house to find the door closed. You want to get in. What do you do?

"Open the door and walk in."

Okay, let's re-think this....the door is locked. How do you get someone to unlock it and let you in?

"I take out my cell phone and text my friend, saying, 'Dude, open the door.'"

I think this is one time I'm justified in just giving him the sign for the word. Duh--Charlie's friends are all deaf. Why bother knocking???

Charley wanna Harley??

Tonight Charlie and I went to the Mid-Atlantic Motorcycle Show at Timonium. Just for yucks and giggles, neither of us could afford to buy anything.

Charlie has decided he's going to learn to ride a motorcycle. I guess that's my bad influence rubbing off on him.

But which one? There were so many to choose from. Maybe this one?

Nah, let's try this one!

Oh, wait...here's the perfect one!


Seriously, they had some pretty weird bikes there. It was fun wandering around and seeing just how much someone could mess up a perfectly simple machine.

Me, I'll stick with my plain little old Honda Rebel! Maybe when Charlie's old enough, I'll be ready to move up and he can buy it from me.

No More Mama Einstein!

Every once in a while, you just have to make a nuisance of yourself.

I have now been working with Baby Einstein (aka Charlie) for two weeks from algebra books borrowed from the library. It crossed my feeble mind that perhaps I should try to get a copy of the algebra textbook they use at school so I know I'm covering the same stuff they do and in the same order. So in addition to the e-mail notes I have been sending his math teacher every couple of days to keep him informed of what Charlie has learned, I also sent him a note asking for the textbook and teacher's guide, explaining that I needed them to be sure I taught him the entire semester's worth of algebra so that he would be able to start the next level in the fall.

All this time, he's been passing my notes on to the vice-principal. Apparently my request for the textbook was the last straw, since I had clearly articulated in that note what our goal was at this point. Today I get a note from him stating that the VP had figured out a way to get Charlie into a pre-algebra class. He starts tomorrow. Furthermore, his current math teacher will continue to work with him after school periodically to ensure that he doesn't miss any of the mathematical principles he would be getting from the general math class.

Squeaky wheel? I think maybe it bothered them that he was in essence being home-schooled by an unskilled teacher who admitted to them that she hated math. Successfully. After all, if he's doing this well under MY tutelage, how well could he do under theirs? They're the experts, after all, in both algebra and sign!

I have (gratefully) agreed to return the library's algebra books and cease and desist from teaching him at home so that he paces with the class.

I seem to have won this one without resorting to whining, begging, or complaining loudly (which does no good at a deaf school, anyway). All I had to do was spend a couple of weeks proving to them what he was capable of. They can't stand the thought of a child not performing to his potential, especially once he's demonstrated the ability. I like this school's flexibility and willingness to work with the kids individually where necessary. They've done this concerning his English lessons, too, because in that area he is naturally behind his peers and they're doing a lot of extra work with him to try to get him up to grade level by the time he finishes high school. (He will have a 5-year high school program.) But they're not going to let that hold him back in other areas, and now they're starting to get a taste of what I've known all along--he has the potential for brilliance if given the chance.

Now go get 'em, Charlie!

Yes, the picture really is Pauline Koch, Einstein's mother. I don't see much resemblance, except that we both had really bright kids.

Baby Einstein

This Baby Einstein I've adopted is starting to irritate me. I simply can't abide having someone smarter than I in the house.

Charlie came home one day last week saying something about being moved to a different math class on Jan 20 (semester change), a lower class. When I had looked at his grade sheet a couple of weeks earlier, he had all A's and B's in math with a D in just one module, and he was able to show me what module was and that he now understood it, so I wasn't concerned about that.

But moving to a lower math class? Time to talk to the teacher and find out what's going on.

It seems that they were actually trying to move Charlie ahead at one point. His teacher felt, and another teacher who subbed for his classes for a while agreed, that Charlie was so strong in math he needed to move up to an algebra class next semester, so they were trying to figure out how to re-work his schedule to get him into an algebra class. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out, since each of his classes next semester is mandatory and is only offered by one teacher at one specific time. So they are planning to keep him in his regular math class (hence the "lower" sign he used) instead of moving him up.

Thing is, Charlie really wants to learn algebra. And before my brain was fully engaged and cognizant of what I was about to say, I told him the only other option I could see was to get an algebra textbook from the public library and for me to teach him that at home on the weekends. He jumped up and said, "Let's go!"

Ahem....I should probably mention that I grew up terrified of math. One of the reasons I delayed college is that I was afraid of math. Once I got started, I actually got A's, but I had to put in a LOT of hard work to do it, and I'm still not comfortable saying that I'm good at math. So the realization that Charlie's first algebra skills were going to depend on me not only remembering all of that crap but actually being able to explain it IN SIGN LANGUAGE struck terror in my heart all over again.

Unfortunately, we got to the library 5 minutes before they closed, so there was plenty of time to get a librarian to show us where the algebra books were and choose one or two. No backing out of this one.

We came home, and Charlie glanced through the books while I was preparing dinner. I kept hoping maybe he would look at it, decide it looks too hard, and quietly set it aside. Noooooo, not ChinaBoy. As soon as dinner was over, I curled up in my easy chair with my laptop to answer some e-mail, and there he is at my shoulder, signing "Help me." Help you what? "Algebra." He wants his first lesson RIGHT NOW.

So we sat down and cracked the book. Introductory stuff. Good--I can remember this part, I'm still with the program. Explaining it sometimes was a bit of a challenge, but we got through the first few topics. It's very easy with Charlie to tell when he truly understands something--you can see the lightbulb going on.

That was Friday night.

On Saturday, I worked and then ran some errands, and when I got home, I sat down with the laptop. Sure enough, within 5 minutes, he's at my elbow. "Help me, algebra."

So we hit the books again.

After only two lessons, he now understands (basics, mind you) prime numbers, factoring, exponents, variables, constants, commutative law, and order of operations; he is solving (simple) algebraic exponential expressions if given values for x and y; he understands area and perimeter of basic geometric shapes and can solve for those values with an algebraic expression; and he understands that the angles of a triangle must equal 180 degrees and how to solve for a missing side of a right triangle.

Okay, maybe not an Einstein (yet), but he is really soaking this stuff up at warp speed, and trying to stay one step ahead of him is starting to get on my last freakin' nerve!

Oh, no...I'm sitting here blogging from my easy chair with my laptop in my lap.

And I hear him coming down the stairs....

Discretionary Funds

Someday when my adoption debts are all paid off (hah!!) and I again have that wonderful item euphemistically known as a discretionary fund, there are a few things I intend to do that serve no practical purpose whatsoever--just because I want to. (Those of you who know me well are gasping in shock and wondering what on earth has come over me, I know!)

One of them is buy a forensic photo regression of Charlie. I would like to make a really nice lifebook for him as a gift if/when he marries, but I have no baby pictures of him. In fact, the earliest pictures I have of him (and very few of those) are from the age of about 12. The orphanage never bothered to take baby or young child pictures of him because they never believed he would be adopted. They didn't really start taking a lot of pictures until the summer before he was adopted, when they found out someone was interested in him. But you've heard of how they can "age" a missing child photograph to show what the child can look like today after being missing for several years? Guess what? They can do it BACKWARDS as well! I caught a link for a company that does both progressions and regressions on photographs, and I'm so excited at the thought of having baby pictures of Charlie that I'm simply beside myself!! You HAVE to check out this link and look at the picture of what Elvis would look like today. This is really cool--take a look at some of the regressions they've done. http://www.phojoe.com/forensic_compositing.html

Another thing would be to start a search for his birth parents. I asked Charlie if he would someday want to know who his birthparents were if that information could be found, and he said yes. That's one of the reasons I follow Brian Stuy's blog (see Research-China.org in the blog list). He's the recognized expert in that field. I have no idea what it costs to mount a search--I have seen how extensively he works on a project from some of the descriptions, and I imagine it's a pretty penny, so it certainly isn't anything I could justify just yet. But someday, when Charlie turns out to be the next John Yeh, (see http://www.gazette.net/stories/12192008/businew173336_32472.shtml), it would be neat to at least reach out and let his birth parents know he turned out okay.

I'm sure I'll find more things to add to the discretionary funds list, but I think these two will be priorities!

New Year, New 'Tude

I'm not much on the resolution thing, never been able to keep one in my life, but I really am going to try to be more optimistic and hopeful this year.

It's been hard this past year, being optimistic, when you're struggling to pay the mortgage, and gas is $4 per gallon, and the utility company raises the rates 72%, the grocery bill skyrockets, and your Chinese kid thinks his favorite things like pomegranates and tomatoes (which now cost $5 each at the grocery store) grow on trees or bushes or something. (Wanna make Charlie's day??? Send him a Harry and David's box of tomatoes or pomegranates!)

But I'm really going to do a better job of it this year.

Gonna spend more time with my kids (when I can get them to spend time with me--I have to remember they have friends and lives separate from mine). Making progress on this one already, since Charlie is working on learning the driver's handbook with me, and has been demanding time from me every day to work on the next sections. Rick is a harder nut to crack, but I'll figure something out. It usually has to involve food.

Gonna spend more time with my parents (when I can catch them at home--for retired people, they sure are gone a lot!). They almost moved last year, and it scared me into realizing how much time with them I'd lose, so I'm going to try and get it all in now, because I know they are still planning on moving, it's just a matter of when.

Gonna get my house in order. The clutter is stressing me out, so my local Freecycle group is gonna have a reason to really love me now. Planning to scan all my files to CD and ditch the filing folders except for the most important originals, get rid of the desktop computer setup since I do everything on the laptop, hopefully get the money together to get the basement leak fixed and maybe even get the house on the market at some point if the economy recovers well enough to sell. Lots of plans in this regard, one small project at a time.

Gonna get more organized. Okay, I'm NOT going back to the OCD days when I alphabetized the cans of vegetables in the pantry (yes, really!), but I will admit the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and I'm losing my grip. Can't remember important events and assignments, and my oldest is starting to call me senile. This just has to stop. I forget how old I am, but it's too young to be senile.

Gonna be healthier. Notice I'm not using the word weight. I refuse to use the word diet. No numbers. But before I went to China, I was doing a good job of eating many raw foods and eating many small meals during the day instead of the traditional Big Three, and I felt good and was never hungry. That regimen got totally screwed up during those three weeks in China, and I've never quite gotten back to it. This ties back in with getting more organized, because it takes planning to have that kind and that much food with you throughout the day (and in my case, evenings at class too), but I'm going there. Also planning to resume my lunchtime walk around the campus I work on, which only took about 20 minutes, but fell by the wayside once I started needing lunch breaks to study for the killer classes I had. Might actually make a deal with myself to use the exercise bike in the basement on days that I skip the walking. No numbers, no end point, no pressure, just going to get healthier. It's easier to be optimistic when you feel healthy.

Okay, I know those things sound a lot like resolutions, but they're not, not really. They're just lifestyle changes that I think will make me happier and help me have a better attitude.

If anyone else wants to share a few resolutions, er, I mean lifestyle changes, hit the comments link. We'd love to hear yours and maybe adopt them, too.

Happy New Year, everybody!