Bring Norah Home

I'd like to introduce you to a young couple with big hearts. Meet Glen & Lori Cook. They are the new parents-to-be of a little three-year-old deaf girl with a heart condition in Kaifeng, China, and they are racing against time. They are supposed to go pick her up in March, but Glen ended up needing back surgery that wiped out a good portion of what they had saved for the adoption, and they are trying to put together nearly $9000 by March. Glen figures if he could find 1000 people/families each willing to donate $10, they will be able to make it.

I am remembering the kindness of all those who donated when I was in need in order to have Jen travel with me. Some small gifts, some large gifts, but it all added up to exactly what we needed by the time we needed it. I was so blessed and so touched that total strangers would be willing to help me like that, and look at the result--I have been blessed with a wonderful child, and Rick has been blessed with the brother he's always wanted.

If you'd like to read Glen and Lori's story and information about Norah, visit their blog at http://www.2china4norah.blogspot.com/.

If you're willing to help them out with a $10 gift (or more--that isn't a limit!), you can either mail it to them at Glen & Lori Cook, P.O. Box 1114, Cabot AR, 72023-1114, or you can use the secure donation widget here or on their blog.

I'm so tickled to have a chance to help out another adopting family the way people helped me out, and I want to see Norah make it into the arms of her mommy and daddy.

Think it over, but don't think too long. March is creeping up on them quickly!

Trolling the Mall (the national mall, that is...)

So this afternoon on pretty much the spur of the moment, I asked Charlie if he wanted to go see the National Christmas Tree in DC.

I expected a rolling of the eyes (like I got from Rick, the oldest...) with the expression that says, "Oh, thrills, another pine tree..." Instead, he started dancing around and bouncing off the walls, oh goody, goody, gonna go see Washington, maybe we'll see the President, maybe we'll see the Washington Monument, maybe we'll....

Okay, I officially qualify for "bad mother" status now. It struck me that this child has now lived with me for coming up on two years, and I have never taken him to Washington DC, which is only an hour away, but in the other direction from where we usually travel. (Truth to tell, I haven't been to WDC in years myself, mainly because I've been too lazy to figure out the Metro train system, and I despise driving there--the city planners were certifiably insane, IMHO.)

So, we drove to Greenbelt, parked, and figured out the Metro. It actually wasn't bad--the hardest part was figuring out the fare (which I still somehow managed to screw up and had money left over on the SmartCard).

On the trip in, he was studying the map, and started laughing. When I gave him a quizzical look, he pointed to the New York Ave./Gallaudet station and said, "The map is wrong. Everyone knows Gallaudet isn't in New York. It's in Washington." So I explained that the Ave. means the same as road, and that many roads in Washington were named after states. I pointed out a few others, and he nodded. The light bulb was on, so I sat back and relaxed. But it struck me that, given his background, that little episode showed remarkable critical thinking on his part. He wasn't willing to accept something that he thought was wrong just because it was in print. He had to question it.

We finally got to DC and emerged from underground, found a street map board, and figured out which way we needed to go. About half a block up, we ran across a huge bronze circle embedded in the sidewalk, and it had a picture of Helen Keller engraved in it along with an abbreviated bio. These things were embedded in the sidewalk every few yards, and Charlie would start eagerly looking for the next one, try to read it and figure out who it was, and then make me tell him who it was and what they were famous for. It's a good thing we had to turn off that street after a few blocks, or we would have never made it to the national tree!

And all the while, Charlie is looking up overhead in amazement at how tall the buildings are and how they're all white marble. He finally looked at me and said, "Baltimore lousy. DC buildings strong." While I think Baltimore would tend to disagree, I do agree that DC is more impressive, with its use of marble, while Baltimore seems to be modernizing. Charlie is not impressed by modern; he obviously likes the old look.


At the point where we turned, Charlie was absolutely convinced we were standing right in front of the White House. After all, the building was imposing-looking, and it had big white columns. Well, okay, but that describes about half the buildings in Washington DC. No, this isn't the White House, Charlie. It's the Treasury Building. This is where they make money. Yes, there are a LOT of cops here. Charlie is not yet sure whether to be in awe of cops or to fear them. He was very afraid when he first got here, but I explained that they were here to protect and help us (nobody say Rodney King, okay?), and he's relaxed a little, but still not completely buying it.

By this point we can see the national tree, so we head in that direction. He was very excited when we rounded a corner and could finally see the front of the White House. It was probably useless, but we took pictures anyway. It was already dark, and I know nothing about night photography. Come to think of it, I know nothing about day photography, either...

And just as I was telling him to give up and come look at the tree because we would not see the President, a chopper comes roaring overhead.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the airspace around the WH is some sort of protected no-fly zone, so no one but the prez's helicopter can do that, right? Of course, it didn't exactly land in the front yard, so we never saw anyone get out or in. But still, Charlie was ecstatic, believing we had just "seen" the President.

We traipsed through the tree display. It was gorgeous. There are smaller trees all around it, one for each state and territory, and each is decorated with ornaments made in that state. There's a train village around the big one. At the far end of the whole display is a yule log pit to warm people up, and off to one side is a concert shell wtih bleachers where a men's choir is performing Christmas music. They were on their last two songs, which I interpreted for Charlie, and he got to see the playful side of Christmas music, because after they finished the last song (Let There Be Peace on Earth), they did an encore of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas," going into double time in the middle and legato at the end. Of course, there was no way I could keep up in the middle, so I flubbed over that to give Charlie the idea of how fast they were going, and I really hammed up the ending being drawn out. He loved it.


The whole time we were "doing" the tree, he had been glancing over his shoulder, sneaking peeks at the Washington Monument behind us. He finally said he wanted to walk over to it. I had already checked, and the trips up to the top ended at 5p, so there was no way we could go up it, but he didn't care, he just wanted to get near it, so off we hiked. We huffed and puffed our way up the hill, and I got a shot or two of him standing against the wall of it.

Then he looked to his left, and his eyes got big. He had just seen his HERO!

When Charlie first came to America and started school at the Columbia campus of the Maryland School for the Deaf, his very first social studies lesson was a unit on Abe Lincoln since he started in the middle of a school year and his class was already up to the Civil War. He was so proud to come home and discuss with me how slavery was bad and Abe Lincoln had freed the slaves because he believed all men were created equal. He had even had to write a letter to Abe Lincoln.


He's been fascinated by good ole Abe ever since. And now, here he is, what looks like just steps away from the guy.

Deep breath...yeah, okay, we can go see Abe. (Keep in mind, it is nighttime and pitch black out here.) Off we go for another hike. I was actually feeling pretty good, not too cold, not too tired, good night for a stroll. Charlie didn't realize just how far this really was. Halfway there, he spots a bench by the water and says he wants to sit. Hey, wait a minute. I'm old, and YOU'RE tired??? Yeah, want to sit a minute. Okay, in his defense, he's had a nasty cold and sore throat the last couple of days, so that probably had something to do with it. After we rested up, we started off yet again. Before we got there, though, we went through the new World War Two memorial. That was simply stunning. Very impressive.

Charlie was just in awe of Abe. He hadn't quite realized just how BIG that statue was. I interpreted the speech on the wall for him (four score and seven years ago...glad I still remembered how many years in a score!), and we went in the bookstore, which was still open, oddly enough, and bought some postcards.

When we left and started towards the Jefferson Memorial (hey, might as well do it ALL, right?), we ran into a black wall. Since it is dark, all walls looked black, but this was REALLY black. And, of course, the first thought that popped into my brain is VietNam Wall. I had found it (by accident) once before while in DC. But this was different, they had added stuff. There was a garden area in front of it with a bunch of white statues of soldiers in jungle type rain gear, carrying their comms equipment and weapons, obviously out on patrol in the jungle. Their faces were really expressive and haunting. Then we got to the wall itself, and I got really confused. The names were gone. No names on the VietNam wall? Something funny here...maybe around the other side? We went around the other side, and etched in the marble on that side, hard to read in the dark but in very large letters, were the words "Korean War Memorial." I felt like an idiot. This didn't exist the last time I was in DC. (Told ya it had been years!) I did some light research when we got home and found out it had been done in 2000. That explains it. From what I could tell in the dark, though, it was very nicely done. Those statues, being such a stark while, simply glowed in the dark. Very haunting.

We finally found the basin area. Didn't walk all the way around it to the Jefferson Memorial--Charlie was hungry (after all, dinner was all of two hours ago) and the area we'd been tramping through was absolutely deserted. Very few tourists, NO vendors of any kind. I promised him we'd come back to this one in the springtime during the cherry blossom festival during the day. (ChinaBoy likes flowers....)

We headed back towards the tree, and found some street vendors where I could buy him a hot dog and a hot pretzel. That oughtta hold him for another 20 minutes or so. (I swear, the boy is a bottomless pit!) I started hearing some drumming. Sounded a little like someone beating on bongo drums. Curious, we headed for the sound. It turned out to be a man who had set up a bunch of paint cans in upside down stacks of varying heights so that they would have varying pitches, and he was just banging away at them with two great big mallet-looking thingies. Eyes weren't even open, he was just in the zone, making his own special music like he didn't have a care in the world. It was so loud that Charlie could even feel the beat and was having fun watching the guy. We had found our very own Little Drummer Boy!

We finally headed back towards the Metro. Passed the Treasury Building again, and as we passed the cop standing outside one of the doors, Charlie asked me if there were cops all over the inside, too, keeping an eye on the people who are making the money. What you asking me for, child? There's a cop standing right there. Go ask him! Charlie's eyes got big, and then he looked at the cop, and I guess he decided the guy didn't look too formidable, so he marches up to the guy and asks his question. The cop just looked at him with a serious grim countenance, and then slowly did a repeated nodding of his head. Charlie backed away slowly, like he was afraid the guy was going to come after him, and beat feet back to the Metro station.

That pretty much ended our little adventure. Charlie had an absolute blast, and we both slept really well that night, given that we had just spent 4-5 hours and countless steps hitting (almost) every major memorial in the DC area.

Angel Covers

I got a question about the "My Blog List" section off to the left of the screen. This is a list of blogs that I like to follow, and I wanted to talk about one in particular: The Angel Covers blog.

What does this have to do with Charlie? Angel Covers is an organization that is dedicated to helping orphans all around the world, and they take on some of the most unbelievable projects. Before Charlie came home to me, Angel Covers found out about him. They did fundraising to have him evaluated and get hearing aids for him. In essence, they gave him his first sounds.

Some of the other things they do are supporting blankets for babies type projects; milk for orphanages; the cow, chicken, goat thing; feminine hygiene supplies for areas where females lose too much time from school because of menstrual flow; and many, many others.

My pet project is an orphanage specifically for the deaf they support in Kenya. There is a deaf school named Humble Hearts, and Angel Cottage is a home connected with this school. They are trying to build a new home for the kids, because the original one was only intended for 25 children, and they now have many, many more than that. The building is very primitive (the kids have to bail water out of it periodically) and the new one is desperately needed because they have hit the point where they have had to turn needy children away. The building is only being built a bit at a time, as the funds come in.

If you are looking for a wonderful place to make a charitable contribution this Christmas, I ask that you prayerfully consider this one. You can follow the blog (linked under "My Blog List" to the left), you can visit their website at http://www.angelcovers.org/, you can buy Christmas cards designed by the orphans of Angel Cottage at http://www.angelcovers.org/holidaycards.html (a bit late for this year, I know, but you could buy early for next year!), or you can make a flat-out donation using the widget below:

Even the smallest gift will help to make a huge impact in the lives of the kids at Angel Cottage.

Many blessings,
K

And the winner is....

Charlie took 1st place trophy in kata at the tournament today!

He didn't place in the fights, but he won his first two matches, and looked good doing it.

No More Adoptions

Well, gosh, it looks like I won't be able to adopt any more. I recently got an e-mail indicating that the adoption agency I worked with had 10 deaf children to place, and in part of the e-mail they listed the new requirements for adoptive parents. Check these out:

Parents must fit the requirements for China adoptions:Married couples only. Couples must be married a minimum of two years, and couples with prior divorces must be married at least five years. Both spouses must be 30–54 years of age (before 55th birthday must complete the adoption for families adopting children who are older or have special needs). Applicants must be "physically and mentally healthy" as defined by the CCAA. Any of the following conditions may disqualify an applicant: A body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more (see this online BMI calculator), for either applicant. Infectious disease still at an infective stage; Mental handicap; Blindness or severe vision impairment; dysfunction of limbs or trunk caused by impairment, incompleteness, numbness or deformation; severe facial deformation; severe diseases that require long-term treatment and affect life expectancy, such as cancer, lupus, kidney disease, epilepsy, etc.; A major organ transplantation less than 10 years earlier; A history of cancer; Schizophrenia;Taking medication for mental disorders (mild or severe), including depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety disorder, within the previous two years . In addition to the requirement for the family's income to exceed $10,000 per family member (including the child to be adopted), the family's net worth must exceed $80,000. Each applicant must hold a high school diploma or equivalent. The youngest child currently in the home must be over 1 year of age. Applicants must have no criminal record.

First off, I'm still single. Even if I were to marry TODAY (which is highly unlikely since Prince Charming is still clueless), I would have to wait 5 years, since I have a divorce in my past. By then, I will be 50. And since adoptions are now taking 3-4 years to process, it is highly unlikely that I would be able to finish the process before I am at the age of ineligibility.

It is also highly unlikely that I would get away with hiding my ICD a second time. That should have disqualified me the first time, and China would simply blow a gasket if they knew I'd gotten past them with that. Since I'm facing heart surgery for that again soon, it would show up in my medical records, so I'd never even clear the first hurdle.

Not that I had any solid plans, mind you, it's just sad that the door is now so firmly shut. Guess I'll just have to live vicariously through tales of other people's adoptions.

Sergey

For those who were curious about Sergey's status but were too polite to ask: I don't know.

I was unable to go back for Sergey after I got back with Charlie. In addition to financial limitations, I also had the issue of having my job abolished. Even though I found another one right away, that disqualified me from starting another paperchase, because they look for stability.

Someone actually contacted me because she had been paperchasing Sergey even before I was, and had to suspend her process when she had a biological child. She was interested in resuming if I were not going to, and I gave her my blessing and the contact information of the agency rep who had his file.

But I don't know the outcome. I'm afraid to ask. Guilt? Sure. If he did not get adopted, he will age out of the orphanage by Christmas.

I can tell you I still think of him every day and pray for him always, and will always wonder what could have been.

Motorcycles and Melons

Okay, this is off topic a bit, since it has nothing to do with Charlie except in a very indirect way, but did you know that motorcycles and cantaloupes are not well suited to each other?

For those outside the immediate family who didn't know it, I went and took the motorcycle classes this summer and bought a bike. Actually, it was the other way around--I bought the bike first, left it in the guy's shed, signed up for the class, and then went and picked it up once I was licensed.

No, I have not had a deep-seated urge all my life to be a motorcycle mama. But the words "70 miles per gallon" were just really talkin' to me...besides, I got cool-mom points from my oldest son, Rick.

Anyway, I belong to this Community-Supported Agriculture group, where a local farmer brings vegetables right to where I work each week, and each person who has bought in gets a set amount of this, that, and the other. I split a share with a colleague of mine, and I ran into a situation this week where I wasn't going to be there to get my share of the loot, so she took it all home, and I went to pick it up from her house a couple of nights later.

Naturally, I took the motorcycle. She had mentioned that one of the items was a cantaloupe, and that we could split it. Charlie loves cantaloupe, so I took a gallon size baggie, jumped on the bike and headed out. I was going to lay the baggie in my tank bag (a bag that sits in front of the rider, on the gas tank, held on with magnets) with the cut side down.

By the time I got there, she had changed her mind. Her husband hates 'loupes, can't even stand the smell of them, and she didn't feel like listening to his whining, so she decided to just hand over the whole thing. So now I have this round cantaloupe. Forget the baggie. I stuck it (along with the zucchini, the eggplant, and the tomatoes) in the tank bag.

Vibrations from the motorcycle don't agree with the melon. By the time I got it home, my cantaloupe had flattened on one side. I didn't have to worry about it rolling off the counter, that's for sure.

I expected to find it half gone by the time I got home from work, since Charlie gets home from school before I get home from work. But it was still intact. I asked him if he had seen it, and he said, "Yeah, but it was all soft. Ick."

Twerp.

How to Make a Birthday Cake

Tomorrow we are having the celebration of Charlie's 15th birthday, since it falls on Monday. His godfather is coming over as well as the rest of my family and Rick's dad. Last year I actuallly had dinner for them all. This year I don't have the energy. We're having a dessert party. Charlie made his own cake. I supervised. (Hey, he WANTED to, okay?) I have decided to take the cheater's way out. Instead of decorating it, I made a HUGE sheet cake, and bought a ton of sprinkles and colored sugars and crystals and tubes of gel in lots of colors, and we're going to mark squares on the cake, and each person is going to decorate one square. Then we'll take a picture before we do the candle thing. So all I have to do is smear icing on it and I'm done my part!

You get creative like that when you're old and tired. Creativity happens when you start thinking, "How can I shove some of this work off on someone else?" That's how Charlie ended up making the cake. It went something like this:

"Hey, Charlie, y'know how you said you wanted to own your own restaurant when you grow up?"

"Yeah...."

"You know, you'll have to know how to make desserts."

"Yeah...."

"Wanna start by learning how to bake a cake?"

"Yeah!"

So I told him what equipment to get out, and supervised him mixing up the first box. (Yes, we used box mixes--so SUE me!!) Then I went and browsed CraigsList while he was mixing up the other two boxes (told ya it was HUGE sheet cake!). Well, I couldn't stand there and watch him after he'd already mixed up the first box, could I? He might get the idea I didn't trust him to do it right, or something. That's just what we need--an almost 15-year-old China boy with a complex.

He did just fine, got it in the oven. I explained how important it was not to let the oven door bang when checking the cake or make any loud noises, how a cake can fall. He was very good about it, remembered to come up and check on the cake at the right time, took it out of the oven very carefully and set it on the counter. Then, as we were leaving the house to go run errands, he slammed the door shut. Aiyeeeeeeee....

Lucky boy, it didn't fall. We will still be having our dessert party tomorrow night.

So that's my recipe for how to make a birthday cake--buy the ingredients, and con the birthday boy into doing it. I think that officially qualifies me as a "bad mother" now, not even making my own son's birthday cake. My only defense is that at least I made sure he had one.

Ahh, let 'em eat cake.

Graduating Middle School

What a sweet evening! It would seem that our very own Charlie Chan is on grade level with everything except English (which is expected, that will take a while to catch up on), so they are going to let him skip 8th grade and go to the deaf high school in the Fall so that he can stay with his peer set. We therefore got to go to the graduation ceremony. It was an awesome evening. I was sobbing when each of the kids took a turn going alone out onto the middle of the stage where a basket of long-stemmed roses had been placed, picking one out, and then seeking out his mom in the audience and presenting it to her. Thinking how far he had come in only a year and a half just took my breath away.

Then the kids did an improv type dance line to VERY loud music, so they could feel the beat, where they come out in pairs and just do whatever they feel like doing to dance (including the little girl in the wheelchair, who got quite a round of applause!). What we didn't know was that Mr. Charlie can DANCE!!! He ended his part with a one-handed cartwheel that brought the house down.

So, technically, Charlie is a 9th grader now. High school--wow! I won't get to see much of him during the fall semester, since he'll be spending more time at the dorm, only returning home on karate nights and weekends. Good thing I'll be in classes, or I might get lonely enough to go adopt me another one....

No, not under consideration. Had ya worried there for a minute, tho', didn't I?

No Hazing

Charlie competed in the Eastern Regional Karate Championships today. This event is a competition for martial artists of all different styles of karate for the entire eastern seaboard of the United States.

I tried to impress on him ahead of time that he had to really show power and a grim, mean face in order to be taken seriously. That mean face is hard for Charlie. You just don't get a sense of what you're up against in this one until you actually see it for yourself.

No trophies today. He did a good solid performance, no errors of any sort at all. It's just that he was up against the very best, and they were better. Now he knows what to expect if he participates in this one next year.

The exciting thing about his performance today, though, was in his fighting. The last time he did sparring in competition, he was eliminated in the first round. This time, he really came out fighting, and he won both his first and second fights, didn't get eliminated until the third round.

The REALLY COOL thing is that we found out afterwards that three gentlemen who had shown up at the tournament were former black belts who had joined the Navy and had to start all over in the rankings in the Navy's martial arts program, so even though they competed as green belts, they really were black belts. (Once a black belt, always a black belt!) One of Charlie's fights was against one of these men, and it was one of the fights that he won--CHARLIE BEAT A BLACK BELT!!!

Charlie's initial reason for wanting to take karate was that some kids at Frederick School for the Deaf told him that the new kids on the block always get beat up. Charlie starts at Frederick this coming Fall, and he was very worried about that.

He doesn't look worried any more. He looks confident now that he knows he held his own in a fight against a black belt. Not in a braggy sort of way, just confident.

I don't think there'll be any hazing going on here.

A New Trophy

Charlie competed in the local (state) karate tournament Saturday. Big surprise--he took home the third-place trophy in kata (forms). They don't give out beyond third place these days, but he placed fourth in jujitsu. He was eliminated in the first round on fighting, but this is still a very new part of martial arts for him--he just put on gloves for the first time last Wednesday.

He was quite happy to be going home with a trophy for his forms, so we went out to dinner to celebrate.

Now he starts getting ready for the Eastern Regional Karate Championships at the end of April. That will be competing against other martial artists all over the East Coast. Keep your fingers crossed and wish him luck!

Green With Envy

As you can see from the picture, Charlie got his green belt.

They had me worried there for a little while. They always call up the kids in a group by the color of the belt they get promoted to, and then announce what color belt they got, and they go in order of the rank, so everyone knows what color is coming next. After they called all the yellow belts, red would be next, and indeed the teachers at the end of the hand-shaking line laid out a bunch of red belts as the kids' names were being called. Charlie's name was called.

He had had a nice, strong performance, no flubs of any kind, so I was certain he would get green, and when his name was called with this group, what ran through my mind was, "Hey, what did he do wrong???" Then, after they called out the last kid's name, they promoted them all to green. There were no red belts this time! So the teachers on the end who were responsible for actually handing out the belts had to scramble very quickly and get out a bunch of the green belts and size them to the kids coming through the line.

He's done a great job so far, but he is about to start the part of karate where you have to start taking people down to the mat and throwing them around. That requires slowing down and doing things very deliberately so you don't hurt anyone. I'm a little worried about this part, since Charlie likes to listen just long enough to think he understands, and then charge in.

Fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view), I have decided to get involved again. Yup, I put on my gi and a brown belt for the first time in several years last week and joined the party. So I will now have the authority to slow him down if I can tell he wasn't really paying attention. Sure, I have that authority as his mother, but somehow there's just an ounce more respect there when you wear a brown belt with a black stripe on it and they know you're only one step removed from being a black belt. (Although, to be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no intention of going for the black, I'm what's known as a "career brown belt," in it just for the exercise and to help teach.)

Yeah, maybe it's Polyanna-ish to think they respect the belt, but hey, it worked with the other one--Rick is STILL a little bit afraid of me, even though he's bigger than I am. Either that, or he's being nice and letting me pretend I'm tougher than he is, since he stopped at blue.

So, how humiliating is it that I ended up with a three-day concussion my first night back? Let the bruises begin...

Black Water and Static

Well, we're finding a few more things that Charlie will eat. Just not at school. He's not real happy about school lunches. (Then again, if I remember correctly, I never raved about school lunch, either!) I keep a well-stocked fruit bowl and individual-sized cans of tuna at home so he can have a snack when he gets home if he didn't eat lunch. He's happy.

I'm cooking Chinese dinners about half the time, and the rest of the time I cook other stuff just to see what he'll end up liking. He tries pretty much anything. Doesn't necessarily eat it after trying it, but at least he tries.

Ever seen anyone put a spoonful of peanut butter in his mouth and then try and get every last smidgen back out while gagging over the trash can?

We went shopping together at the local Asian market one night a couple of weeks ago, and got a ton of stuff he liked. The first night I made stir-fry, he was bossing me around the kitchen like he knows how to cook it. I had bought oyster sauce and hoisin sauce for the spices. He couldn't read the label but smelled it. Then he shook his head no, and said what we needed was black water.

Huh????

Black water. He then proceeded to go through my kitchen, opening every liquid bottle in the cabinets looking for black water. He finally found what he wanted.

It was a bottle of Gravy Master.

No, no, no....I'm puttin' my foot down here. No Gravy Master in the stir-fry. He was quite insistent that this is what they used in China. I flat-out refused and sent him out of the kitchen. I finished the stir-fry with the oyster sauce and hoisin sauce, and doggoned if he didn't love it and eat 2 heaping plates of it.

I have since realized that black water is probably soy sauce. That I could have dealt with. But not Gravy Master.

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Last night we were playing Monopoly (Rick, Charlie, 'n' me). Charlie LOVES Monopoly. And he only got burned in a trade once. Rick got one of the cheap-o properties from him in exchange for two very nice, expensive properties, and then proceeded to put hotels on the cheap-o place. You should have seen Charlie's face when he landed on something that previously had cost him only $4 in rent, and found he had to pay something like $450. That has never happened again.

But I digress. We were playing Monopoly, and Charlie suddenly gets this idea. He picks up a metal ruler that was laying on the table near him, and he starts rubbing it through his hair vigorously.

What on earth are you doing, child?

Need paper.

So I handed him a piece of paper from his homework we had been working on earlier.

No, paper to tear up.

He jumps up and heads out of the room, comes back with a blank piece of paper, and promptly tears it into little shreds.

Then he picks up the ruler and starts rubbing it in his hair again.

???? Rick and I are giving each other rather puzzled glances.

Then Charlie takes the ruler and holds it over top of the paper shreds.

Okay, we get it now. He is obviously trying to use static electricity to get the paper to "jump" up to the ruler.

The problem is, this ruler had a strip of cork along the back of it. No static charge.

Charlie gets closer and closer to the paper, and just doesn't understand why the paper won't behave for him. He finally gives it an irritated look, smacks the pile of paper with the ruler, and little shreds of paper go flying all over the place. Then he looks at us with frustration and says, "But it worked in China."

Long, pregnant pause before Rick and I simply fell out laughing.

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By the way, for those of you who are Sherpa fans, I have an update. Remember back when I blogged about our trip to the orphanage, and there was a young deaf boy there who made eye contact with Jen and wouldn't let go? He wrapped his little fist right around that huge heart of hers, and hasn't let go of that, either. His other little fist reached across the ocean and grabbed her husband's heart and held on tight there, too.

It is now official. Jen and her husband are in the paperchase, and we are hoping their new son (who shall be called Eli) will come home around end of summer. Since we now have the e-mail address and are in regular contact with the directress of the orphanage, she already knows about it and has already informed the child, and she says he is very happy about it.

Praise God--another deaf child that China considers "unadoptable" has found a family full of loving arms and hearts. And he was never even on the registry! Is this a fairy-tale ending, or what?

Congratulations, Eli. And congratulations Jen and Joel.

Brace Yourself

Well, the braces are on. Charlie was really good about the whole thing, paid attention to all the instructions, and actually seems to be following them. He was sore the first few days, but that passed quickly and he was soon back to his usual happy self.

Happy Beginnings (AKA Emptying out the Orphanage)

Just wanted to give everyone an update on some of the characters mentioned in the earlier part of my blog, because we are doing a good job of getting the orphanage emptied out.

If you remember from our trip to the orphanage when Charlie went to say good-bye and pass out presents, we met a boy with albinism who really touched us because his adoption had disrupted the week before we got there to get Charlie. It was so distressing to know that he would probably never get another chance at adoption, since they were unlikely to re-list him after a "failure" like that. (Like it's the kid's fault, right???) Amazingly, a conversation thread started about him on the Yahoo group set up for parents from that orphanage. They were following my journey on the blog and were outraged at his circumstance. Then one of the members said she thought a friend of hers was paperchasing him and she'd invite her to join the group. His name is now Brian. His family loves him to death, and I recently saw him singing "Baa-Baa Black Sheep." He looks very cool in his sunglasses (which he needs to protect his eyes, since his albinism affects how he tolerates light).

The little boy that we got measurements for and pictures of because his adoptive parents already had their referral and wanted to know if we saw him? His name is now Emmett, and he came home a few months after Charlie. He has an interesting story, because his parents originally adopted a girl from that orphanage, and when they went to get her, they saw what close friends she was with this boy. They ended up going back for him so that her best friend could be her brother. You should see their pictures of the two of them together as sibs--they're adorable and so obviously happy to be together again.

Another couple from Canada contacted me for the orphanage director's address shortly after Charlie and I got back. The orphanage director sent me some photos of the child they were adopting to pass on, and Charlie knew the child in those photos, so he was happy to see that this child was also being adopted. Their son's name is now Aidan, and they got back in the late summer/early fall timeframe.

And last but certainly not least....Does everyone remember Jen, my sherpa, and the child she "accidentally" (yeah, right!) made eye contact with while we were in Charlie's classroom? They were a love story waiting to happen. Jen and her husband went through a long period of prayer and contemplation, and then started learning ASL and filling out the paperwork to bring him into their family. God knew exactly what they needed when they needed it, because a part-time job turned up for her husband just at the point where it looked like they would have to send Jen over alone for the adoption. Thankfully, they were able to both go. They got home four months ago, and their new son Eli has settled in beautifully as a member of their family and is much loved by his brother and sisters. He is attending their local deaf school and signing up a storm. (Unlike Charlie, the orphanage had not sent him to the deaf school in China, so he did not know Chinese sign language and grew up without any real language to speak of, making his wants and needs known with gestures.) I am so thrilled that Eli has a home with loving arms and signing hands.

According to Charlie, there was only one other deaf child at the orphanage besides him and Eli, a girl much younger that he didn't know very much about. I don't have any info on her, but I could certainly e-mail the orphanage director to find out if she is still there, if someone is interested in starting a paperchase!

There have been other people join our orphanage's Yahoo group once they get their referrals for children from this orphanage and discover this group exists, and we've seen three newbies over the past two weeks, so the orphanage is still getting kids out there. Unfortunately, I suspect they take in new children just as fast, since the one-child-rule politics in China that cause this situation still haven't changed. But we'll keep growing our group to support each other and cheer on those who are bringing their children home.

Pow

Next belt test: Green belt, March 12!
Stay tuned....

Money Matters

Last weekend, Charlie and I are sitting at the dining room table, just chatting, and he happened to mention that he had some checks he needed to deposit. He has been tutoring someone in ASL off and on via videophone, and after every few sessions, he gets a check to cover a few sessions at a time. We had opened a savings account for him back in September with his first couple of checks. Now he's ready to deposit more.

I decided the time was ripe for a teaching moment. I had him get his quarterly statement, which had just recently come in. He brought it over to me, and I showed him the money we had initially deposited. Yup, he remembers that okay. There's $38 in there.

Then I showed him the entries for the next 3 months that each had 6 cents. He gets a perplexed look on his face and signs, "But I didn't put that in there!"

So I explained how interest works.

He gets a wise, understanding look on his face and says, "So I guess I should put that other $200 in there, huh?"

Now you must understand that we recently had a very serious misunderstanding, and I am no longer willing to trust that I have completely understood him perfectly. I'm quite willing to believe I did not really see him say $200. So I said, "You mean $20, right?"

"No, $200."

"You do not have $200."

"Yes, I do."

"Where?"

"Up in my room."

"Nuh-uh.....Show me!"

Off he goes to his room. He's up there a few minutes, and then he comes back with this HUGE wad of cash. It's about 3 inches thick. Mostly fives and ones.

Now, I knew the kids work for an hour each day at school. Some help out in the office, some work at cleaning, and Charlie works in the cafeteria during the little kids' lunch. For this, they get paid. I thought it was $5 per month. Occasionally I will see a candy wrapper in the kitchen trash can of a type of candy that I have never bought before, so I figured Charlie uses his $5 per month to get himself a special treat. And that's fine.

But no, it turns out they get paid WEEKLY, not monthly. And Mr. Charlie will occasionally buy himself a treat, but for the most part, he brings the money home and stuffs it in a drawer in his desk.

By the time we finished counting all the cash and the $15 in checks, the kid had $250 sitting there.

I told him it can't gain interest sitting in the desk drawer. And if someone steals it, it's gone. Safer in the bank. His answer? "Well, I didn't KNOW I should put it in the bank."

Yeah, well, I didn't know you had anything WORTH putting in the bank!

Next field trip: Drive-through teller, learn how to make a deposit and read the receipt.

I think he has more money in the bank than I do now.

Aging Gracefully

Martin Luther King day. Charlie has an appointment with an oral surgeon. To back up a little, Charlie is about to get braces. After the initial appointment with the orthodontist, we were asked to go see an oral surgeon, because there were some bright spots on the x-rays they wanted checked out.

So here we are, Charlie seated in the surgeon's chair. The surgeon examines him, examines the digital x-ray, and then asks, "How old are you?" Charlie answered that he was 14-1/2. The surgeon mutters, "His dentition is more mature than that."

I was busy interpreting for Charlie, so the ramifications of that statement didn't sink in until later, when I had a chance to process it in mommy mode instead of interpreter mode. I spoke with the surgeon later by phone and asked him just how much more mature the dentition was. His initial guess from memory was 16, but after looking at the films again, he said Charlie has the dentition of a 17-year-old, but to remember that this isn't an exact science.

I'm not quite ready to believe 17. When Charlie was found, they estimated he was 2; if he is now truly 17, that would mean he was actually 4-1/2 when he was found. There's a BIG difference between a 2-year-old and a 4-1/2-year-old, and I'm really having trouble believing they were that far off. I think the truth is probably somewhere between his legal age of 14-1/2 and 16.

What am I going to do about it? Absolutely nothing.

In the deaf school, you have until age 21 to get a regular high-school diploma. If you can't attain that, you can get a certificate of completion from the school. Charlie is shooting for the diploma, but he's at a disadvantage to start with, not knowing English as well as his peers yet and starting from scratch. He's in the 7th grade now, but he can stay in high school through age 21. If I change his legal age now, that would severely curtail the amount of time he has to achieve this. I think he is right on target with where he needs to be, and socially he is fitting in well with his peers. His attitude is sometimes more mature, but that's okay; it just means he sets a good example.

I really can't see short-changing him on the amount of time he has to get his diploma and graduate. I see no benefits whatsoever to changing his legal age. Besides, he knows his birthday and that is part of his identity. I think it would be a jolt, after all the adjustments he's dealt with in the past year, to suddenly be told he's older than he is.

I did tell him, but I also explained my reasons for keeping him at age 14, and he's fine with that. He seems to take everything in stride.

Besides, I don't want him to start asking for the car keys just yet.

It does explain the mustache, though.