Just a funny

A note on the fundraising efforts, I sold 4 of my bookmarks to the various car salesmen at the dealership that I bought HiHo from. It amused me; I think I just had to give it a try to sell something back to them!

What a WEEK!

Wow, From the new car, HiHo, being such a blessing to actually having contact with Little Miss to Losing power and about one in every four trees in our neighborhood this has been a varied and eventful week.

First, I have to say that the Beater has been a blessing from day one and God kept her running for so long. I am truly thankful to have been payment free as we've been for more than nine years. HiHo, her replacement, has some features like auto open doors that I really love. Stow and go seating, AC, radio that works and more. He drives so smoothly and doesn't make any disturbing noises. I know my mechanic was even starting to worry about the beater and he was smiling when he inspected HiHo.

Thursday evening we were able to contact Little Miss (shhh) and find out that she does indeed like the name Calliandra, doesn't like dogs, does like cats and is happy that we were getting a piano. I've also gotten her a good set of basic clothing that can be co-ordinated with the other pieces. Basic, but not boring. I've especially looked for clothing that has stiching and beading so it has more tactile differences. I think our little Sundress girl is about a size six, so am buying sixes, eights and a few bigger things for later if they're really cute. I also picked up a barbie head at the thrift store to practice my french braiding. I figure one hair do an evening and I should be ready for her by gotcha day (whenever that is).

Saturday we hit Target for a few items on sale and I picked up the bedding for C's bed on clearance. 3 sets of sheets, one duvet cover, one shower curtain for the curtain and a table runner for a wall hanging. All flowers and bright colors, but no pink. I'll have to figure our how to work that in. Wonder if she'd go for yellow with coral accents for her room colors.
Tuesday Night my friend Vicki and I hit the town for a girls night out. Okay, so our girls night out only involves Target, Ram's Horn restaurant and closing Kohls, but we were out WAY after 10. It counts as a wild and crazy night for us on a work night.
Vicki and fiance Jeff gave us a certificate to a movie too. We'd let them borrow our tent and blow up bed to go to Nascar with and this was a nice thank you. We'll be combining that with a certificate from neighbor Linda to an Italian restaurant near us soon for a good ole Date Night soon.

Thursday we were given the gift of a piano. A friend, who is a grandmother herself, gave us her second piano which was her grandmother's. As she's 88 herself, I can only imagine how old this is. I love it, beautiful but battered. I won't worry about it being more battered as Acer is not too easy on things. He loves it and Mum, who actually plays-I don't, said it has a lovely tone. Mum has been given a lot of beginner music by her client who used to be a classical concert pianist and music teacher. Mum will be working with both kids on teaching the piano.

After the piano movers left, we headed down for a nap, after the nap - the storm struck. We've been struck by tree blow over storms twice this month already, but this was a tree breaking storm. The others, trees blew over whole this one, trees were just ripped apart. There was hail and thunder and lightning. I grabbed Acer and RAN for the basement. We were safe, our trees were fine, but just right next door they had a tree go down. I'd say we lost at least 25% of the trees in the neighborhood. A huge number. Of course we lost power for about 24 hours too. Power was back on today. Of course it doesn't really bother Acer not to have power except he can't hear his music. this time at least we had the novelty of the piano to keep him interested. Unfortunately we couldn't contact C as planned, We had to re-schedule for Tues. I was really bummed.

Well, time to do laundry as I haven't been able to these past couple days.
I HOPE to post pictures of the new vehicle, the piano and other things soon, but have to find the camera to do it. Sigh.

Ode to the Beater, A good, loyal, trusty and rusty steed

Well, the Beater is finally being retired today. She's earned it.
We've gone through 6 sets of tires
3 Mufflers
2 transmissions
innumerable wipers and light bulbs
and, by my estimate more than 70 oil changes
She still gets 20 mpg and it's a tough call.
I just don't feel secure driving in her anymore.
So today, I go to pick up a 2006 Chrylser Town and Country with under 18,000 miles on it.

January of 95-June '08
It's been a long ride car and you've been good to me.
I don't know how the new one is going to measure up.
He's got some big shoes to fill :(

ChunBin knows she has a family!

I had sent an email to Delphine, the head of ChunBin's foster home, Bethel (link on sidebar) This is the reply I received today (editing out extraneous bits)

Hi Heather

I told Chunbin today ... Chun Bin was silent but also joyful as usual, laughing, joking about my Chinese a little. I am telling you, you will have a realllllllll sweetheart, you will bless God every day for her, she is (and I am not telling you that to make you happy but really because it's the pure truth) she is a pure sunshine. ...

Also for her name I will ask her Monday because tomorrow am not going to Bethel

Delphine

I am really hoping she likes the name Calliandra. I do have a few others I like if she doesn't like that, but I just think it's a beautiful name. I'm hoping to be able to start thinking of her as something other than Little Miss soon. Although, judging by the number of times we call Acer 'Little Man' she may still go by Little Miss.

The return of Guangguang

Our wonderful next door neighbors, Linda and her daughter Leeanna, gave Acer a stuffed microplush parrot who snores when his wing is squeezed. Acer loves Micro plush and this parrot, christened GuangGuang, soon became the first toy Acer has ever asked to sleep with.
GuangGuang suffered an internal injury and Acer was upset that his beloved toy no longer snored. Enter the emergency team of Aunt Kerry and Uncle John. The ever talented Kerry performed surgery and discovered GuangGuang had a wire come loose. Uncle John took him into work and was able to re-attach the wire. Kerry then sewed up the wing, and added a placket and velcro so we could even change the batteries when needed. If you didn't know Guangguang had had an operation, you would never even see the scar.
Last night Uncle James brought GuangGuang home (James and John work together and things are conveyed via James mail). Acer was still awake when I brought Guangguang into his bedroom and even in the dim hallway light I could see the white of his teeth as he smiled and hugged his precious Guangguang. I think that parrot snored for the next 15 minutes straight as Acer reassured himself that all was right with the world again.

We have Power again

Wow, the storms that ripped through MI Sunday were fierce. A tornado touched down about 15 miles away and the winds that reached our area blew down multiple trees and ripped limbs from others. We're not sure which tree knocked out our power but we lost power about 4:30 pm Sunday and got it back this morning about 12:30. Thankfully none of our food even spoiled, as we kept the fridge closed up tight. It meant eating a lot of odd, non-cook meals, but we survived and none of our personal trees were harmed in the storm.
I did suffer from a lack of email as I couldn't even check it at work but I'm happy to be back and will be catching up on everybody's blogs this week.
It was hard to explain to Acer why we couldn't play any of his music, but we tried playing other toys more and he only fussed a little saying "you want Mama to get power!". Yes, we're still working on switching him from 'you want' to 'I want.' more of a response instead of a repeat.

Little Miss and others singing

Here's a video of singers from Little Miss' foster home. A family who was adopting from there just a few weeks ago took this video. LM's in the front row wearing a pink and white dress, second from the left. To her left, is her friend who has just been adopted and isn't even home yet. To her right, the little girl in the red dress is supposed to have a family working on paperwork. In the back row, the tallest girl is also supposed to have a family working on paperwork. We're praying that the girl in the striped dress in the front row finds a family soon. She's ten and really wants to be adopted especilly as she's seen her friends getting adopted.

Mum's influence is being felt

For the past two months Mum has been watching Acer three days a week. We can tell what she's been teaching him, old nursery rhymes and other things by what he says. We were startled at first to hear him say he needed to have a bowel movement, as we've been using the Chinese phrase for infants for it, lababa, but we've gotten used to it.
Today instead of saying sit your butte down, our normal phrase, (yes I do use the word butte and yes, he talks about himself in the second person) Acer said "sit your buttocks down." Then he sat in his chair at the table and said 'Might I have some water please?' I swear he said it with a Canadian Accent!

Residual sales from the weekend

I almost forgot to post about this, but Bill sold more stuff on Monday and we added 123.80 to our fund for Little Miss. More jewelry and more knitted facecloths I believe.
Total for the weekend 527.80. Hurrah!

Busy Monday

I had an early meeting about Acer's school placement for next year. So I was up and out of the house at my normal time to go to work, even though I'd taken the day off. Mum watched Acer so I was able to attend the meeting both mentally and physically. Somtimes it's hard to do both with Acer there.
Acer will be going to school half days five days a week. I think he'll do best with a regular schedule like that. He'll be in pre-school there for two years and then switch to kindergarten. It's actually all the same room, so He'll just progress at his own pace until he's ready to be mainstreamed. When they asked me what my goals were I said my long term goal was for him to be an independent world traveller! Okay, they did ask for long term goals and that's it. My goal is to raise a son who will be confident and able to do whatever he wants.
While talking with his next year's Orientation and Mobility specialist, we got on the subject of canes, Acer needed a longer one and I wanted to get Little Miss a longer folding one. I can tell from the pictures that her cane isn't long enough and figured a folding one would be the easiest to transport. So, she got us one that day. It came home with Mum and Acer from school, and is all set to travel with us to give to her. Acer also got a new longer cane too.
I also took advantage of this time to hit the bank with our craft sale money and also to hit Kohls. Yes, I finally did some shopping for Little Miss now that I have her size. I tried to outfit her with basics from head to toe, socks and tights up to barettes and hair elastics. Think I did really well for my money and we now have a drawer in her dresser full of clothes. It was tough to resist sme stuff, but I don't want to go over board until we see what size she wears in pants.
We went to band practice last night, as usual Unca James watched Acer. Oddly enough, because Bill was there, Acer wanted me to hold him while we were singing. He's usually such a BaBa's boy that I just don't get to hold him when Bill's around, however at band practice he seems to want to be with me lately. Not sure why, but it is interesting, and it's also hard to sing with him in my arms. Not complaining, got to get my snuggles why he's still small enough to want them.

New info about ChunBin

My friend Velleta is over in China adopting from ChunBin's orphanage and has sent us a more detailed update on her. Here's what she had to say.

She is fairly small, wiry, and cute as a button. I did not see her use her cane when we went out to bounce on the trampoline, although she did need some guiding to get into the swing. I think she is normally pretty cheery, but was depressed much of the time I was there. She did come to life playing outside. I don't think these kids are as used to being outside and physical exercise as I had assumed. Chun Bin was playing with a doll briefly (pretending to feed it), but I didn't see concentrated play with it.
CB speaks broken English, but I think it will improve rapidly. CB I had to listen to very carefully, but I could make it out. She was one of them who kept asking if I could adopt her too. I think phone calls may be difficult, but actual communication when you get her will not. ... seemed very bright and eager to learn. I don't think you need worry about any cognitive impairments. I think you will find her flexible, bright, and a complete delight (after things settle down at home). Jenna really misses her, and I think it will be good for them to be able to maintain contact.


Also, the craft sale went well today, we sold quite a bit and are up another $404.00. Bill and Acer went and looked extremely cute in matching lime green polos and navy shorts. James made a ton of cookies for us last night and the kintting group had good stuff to sell as well. Our Jewelry seemed to be selling better than the bookmarks, and I think I may look around for other craft shows to go to to sell more. Bill and Acer seemed to actually feel better as the day went on. Thank you for the prayers for their health. Now, I just need to kick this bug myself, i actually called in to work today, and it will all be good.

If you have any mad desire to try to sell these to people around your area, drop me a line, I'll ship some out with one of the brochures and then you can just chip in the money back to me. Yes, I know, why would you want to, I'm not sure, but I hope you do want to.

Heather BT