Lots of Fun!

I'll have to post again later about our trip yesterday to Islands of Adventure, but first, I have to update on our last week's adventures! On Thursday night, Konnor got inducted into the Scholar's Club at Trafalgar Elementary. He was so excited! We are very proud of him!

On Saturday, we participated in the Cape Coral Park's and Rec Bike Hike. It was a blast! It was Konnor's first time being able to ride his bike a significant distance without training wheels. I have to admit that we had been a bit lax in taking the time to have him practice riding his bike without training wheels and so he just learned how to ride on two wheels. He wanted to ride his bike to school in the mornings and I had told him he couldn't ride a bike with training wheels to kindergarten. He then pestered me to teach him to ride without training wheels so he could ride to school. A couple of months ago I took off the training wheels and he learned after a couple of afternoons of practice to ride without them. His big reward was to ride his bike to school a couple of days a week (with Yunnie and I walking beside him) and we signed up for the bike hike. The bike hike started at Cape Coral Yacht Club and we rode to Four Freedom's park where there was a finish line, water, and decorations for the bikes. We hung out for 45 minutes or so and then they closed off the roads again and we rode back to the Yacht Club. It was alot of fun!!

Too Funny!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1140362425

Regan's First Thanksgiving!

Regan loved her first Thanksgiving! My grandparents and my aunt, uncle, and cousin came down and we had a blast! I have to back track a little and tell a story that happened at a Chinese restaurant.

We went on Tuesday night, because my mom and I just couldn't bear the thought of cooking. We went in and ate and then while we waited for Konnor to finish my ice cream, we played with Regan and her doll. My back was to the door, but my mom said there were several of the employees who were laughing at Regan and her make believe with her doll. We have gone to this particular Chinese restaurant a couple of times before and they have never reacted to Regan being Chinese (unlike the other restaurant where they all try to hold her). So, we ate our meal and on they way out there were four or five workers sitting at a table. They stopped and wanted to chit chat, asking about Regan, how old she is, how long she has been in the US, where she was born, etc, etc. After a couple of minutes, several more employees came out to talk with Regan. In the end, the boss had picked out a toy for her and one of the men presented her with a stuffed Santa. It was just so thoughtful! My mom had seen the man pick out the Santa, but didn't realize they were waiting for us to walk by to give it to Regan. How nice, and this particular man is always so strict looking, I didn't know he had such a soft inside! It was a nice start to the holiday!

Wednesday night, we had to hand bell in our church's Thanksgiving Eve service and my grandparents and Konnor watched Regan. They all had a great time! She is so loved and she reciprocates all that love!

On Thanksgiving, we ate lots of food! Regan wasn't that into the turkey, but she doesn't eat alot of meat anyway. She prefers fruits and vegetables and will eat her weight in cauliflower, green beans, corn on the cob, and cantaloupe. We then did lots of shopping, although we went late on Friday because I can not bear the thought of fighting crowds! My grandparents left on Saturday morning and we went Christmas tree shopping today.

Regan was not sure of the tree picking and when she is in a new situation, she has this very stoic look on her face and will not smile for anything. She also does this when she meets new people, and I have to swear that she really does know how to smile! The chainsaw kind of threw her for a loop and she didn't really care what tree we picked out!

Regan's First "Official" Hair Cut

For some time Regan's hair has been driving me bonkers. It was very uneven on the back of her head where she had alot of short hair from where the orphanage had shaved her head. You could tell that right over the back she rubbed her head back and forth and caused alot of hair loss. When she first came home she would rub her head back and forth on the bed or carseat when she was upset. Her hair was thicker on top then it was on the bottom. Her hair was looking "poozly" as I call it. My problem was, "who in the world would be able to give her a hair cut when she doesn't sit still for more than one minute"? I figured she would freak out sitting in a salon chair. Today, I sat and looked at her hair and couldn't deal with it anymore. So, I had the brilliant (said sarcastically) idea that I would just cut it myself. Now, why did I think this? I'm not a hair dresser. I have never cut a head of hair in my life, if you don't count her bang trims that I do as she runs past me. I removed the back of her high chair and created a salon in the living room.

My plan was just to trim a little bit and then if it was an absolute disaster I would call my hairdresser (who I haven't seen since before China, but then we'll tackle my hair another day). Problem number one was that she turned her head during one of my first cuts and about two inches of hair fell off. So my brilliant plan just went down the toilet because now she doesn't have enough hair to salvage a hair cut unless we give her a buzz cut. Oh, well I thought, it will grow back and I proceeded to do the best I could.

The good news is that her hair already looks healthier. The bad news is that I had to take off about two inches and it is WAY shorter than I would have liked. I thought she would look cute with a bob, but she looks like a little boy! Luckily, I can dress it up with hairbows and her hair grows pretty quick. I'll let it grow a little and next time probably not push my luck and I'll let a hairdresser cut her hair!

Another Fun Week!

Referral Day Anniversary

One year ago today, I got the most wonderful phone call of my life. At 6 in the morning, I half heartedly checked the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs website and saw that my log in date had been included in the batch of matched children. I was elated. I remember screaming and calling my mom and yelling, "I'm in, I'm in!!!". I then anxiously carried my phone around with me all day and at 1 o'clock in the afternoon my caller id said "Lifelink". I answered the phone giddy with excitement and my social worker, Jennifer said, "Are you ready for me to change your life?". I was so excited I couldn't stop giggling as I quickly pulled over the car into some stranger's yard in order to take notes and concentrate on the phone call.

I found out that there was a little girl named Nan Zi Yun who was waiting for me at the Maoming Social Welfare Institute (orphanage) in Guangdong Pronvince, People's Republic of China. I knew she was born on January 16, 2006. That was about all I found out that day. I was so thrilled! I ran into my next school and told one of the teachers, "I'm a mommy!". It was amazing.

The following day, on the third of November, I drove with my mom and Konnor up to Sarasota to Lifelink's office to see pictures of my baby girl. She was and is so beautiful. It is amazing to look at a picture and know that that is your daugther. To know that she is halfway around the world and has no idea how her life is going to change. To then know that there is a little baby who is your daughter, whom you have never met, not knowing how loved she is by people who have never seen her.

So, this is the anniversay of one of the best days of my life. I look at her now (as she is trying to fit into her plastic toy shopping cart, not successfully, I must say) and am so amazed I am so blessed to be her mommy.

Regan's First Halloween!!!

Pictures!

Regan's first wall art. Can't you tell she is pleased as punch?!?! We have had a couple of long discussions about how to pick an appropriate canvas for our creativity ;)

I finally caught it on film! The eyeroll! I have to turn around so that she doesn't see me laughing because I don't want to encourage this behavior, but it is really amazing that it doesn't have to be taught, but obviously is instinct. I just didn't expect to see if for another 10 years or so! This is about the third picture I took of her and when I told her to "smile" she got a little put out (obviously!).

Konnor lost his second tooth! Unfortunately, we still don't have his tooth pillow done and so he will probably be old enough to open his own checking account by the time the tooth fairy gives him money to deposit!
Is this not the most good natured dog? He outweighs her by about 110 lbs and yet she loves this position. She loves to watch tv, read, draw, just about anything while sitting between his front paws and using his chest as a back rest.

Very Busy!

The last two weeks have been crazy busy! Two weekends ago, we did alot of running around and received a new pet into the house! I know, another one! Yunnie and Konnor have been fascinated with beta fish. I am not much of a fish person, I love the ones in my canal, but have had no real desire to own any as pets. Well, since Yun and Konnor love them so much we decided to get them each one as one of Konnor's birthday presents. Konnor got to pick out each beta fish. They love them! Regan points to hers every morning and says goodnight every night.

I ended up dropping one of my paper routes. We are busy every night of the week. Monday, handbell practice and church meetings. We often don't get home until 8:30 or 9. Tuesday and Wednesdays were paper routes. We don't get home until after nine! Thursdays are dog obedience until 8:30. Saturdays are Konnor's soccer. Sundays are church in the morning. It was just too much and the paper route was making unreasonable demands on my time that were interfering with my real job, and so I decided it wasn't worth it. It was so nice to have a Wednesday off just to breathe!

Last Saturday, we went to Konnor's soccer game, spent a couple hours at a church "work day" (where you come to church to help clean, landscape, etc. My mom and I worked on the nursery). We then loaded up my mom's van and headed to north Florida to help my grandparents do some yardwork. You should have seen the van! My mom, me, Konnor, Yunnie, and Jason. Then add my three dogs and my mom's three dogs and it was a crowded mess! Poor Marmie barely squeezed in the center of the van! We got to Interlachen (near Gainesville) at about 7 PM. We had to stop, but we still made good time in just about 5 hours).

On Sunday, we did alot of landscaping. "We" means my mom, grandmother and I! My brother sat inside and watched tv, but that is another story!!!! We worked on things that my grandparents were having trouble doing. Trimming trees and removing some bushes. At about 4PM, we loaded back up and headed home. We stopped and ate and didn't get back until 10 ;(

On Wednesday, we added yet another addition to the family. I was seeing one of my homebound students and we were working outside. I turned around and a rabbit hopped right up to us. I asked her mother if she recognized the rabbit as somebody's pet because it was obviously tame. She didn't but was going to ask around. I ran it home where it has been staying in a dog carrier. I didn't want to spend the money on a cage if it's home was found. There has been no claims made and so this weekend we went out and bought a cage. I didn't want the maintenance of another animal, but what do you do when it literally hops right up to you?!?!?!? I am such a sucker and this is what got me in trouble when I worked at the vet's office!

Konnor has had a great week! He was star student. He was so excited! He passed two sight word tests right after receiving them and is now on list ten. I am amazed at he and his classmates ability to read, only being in kindergarten! I volunteer on Thursday mornings for a couple of hours and make my work day a late day. I love being in the classroom. The kids are a hoot! He is reading books on an AR level of 1.0 to about 1.5. He could read more, but he doesn't think he can and so he doesn't try. We don't push because we want him to love reading and not think it is a chore. I've been reading him the Magic Tree House books and my mom reads him the Andrew Lost series. Both of them are awesome series! His comprehension is really good. We went to the library this weekend to get him the Magic Tree House on CD so that he can listen in the car or on his CD player when I'm not available to read to him or if he wants to listen again. He is also loving some of Beverly Clearly's books on CD. Konnor also found out that he made drama club at school. They held auditions two weeks ago. I'm not quite sure how he made it, but he is excited so we are glad he did! He had to audition as the part of Grumpy, one of the seven dwarfs. He was the most cheerful Grumpy I had ever seen! It will be fun for him to hang out and be with friends and work on the behind the scenes work. Anyway, enough of my rambling, it is time to go clean up this house! This very crowded house! ;)

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

Okay, I had to put a more upbeat post after the last one. The story behind the picture is that Regan got out of the bath, came in my room and destroyed the bed in a frenzy of dancing. Her bedtime is still not ideal and she was up to watch "Dancing with the Stars". She LOVED it! She then started twirling and trying to dip herself on the bed! I had helped her with her dipping technique in the living room, but obviously she hadn't gotten all the boogie out of her system.

So, back on the picture. I turn around and pull her pajamas out of the drawer. A SPLIT second! I turn around and she is up on my very high headboard shaking her purples, dancing and waving her arms. Have I mentioned a time or two that she is very quick and very mobile?!?!?!?

Health Scare - Warning: Long, Rambling Post

About three hours after the steroid. She is feeling pretty good! She loves to collect stuff and hide it in different places. It makes living with her a little more interesting. She just up and decided to try and do gymnastics in one of the cabinets. Of course I let her for awhile because I was just so darn happy she was feeling good!

This week with Regan started off pretty rough. She had been waking in the night again. Not nightmares, just waking up off and on through the night. It culminated on Wednesday night with her waking and just crying and crying and crying. Not scared crying, just crying. I had no idea what was wrong. I tried everything. We finally ended up getting out of bed and meandering the house and then got back in bed and watched The Amazing Race for one and 1/2 hours. This is when I feel exhausted being single. What I wouldn't have given on one of those nights to be able to just let her visit someone else one of those afternoons so that I could nap. Anyway, I took her to daycare on Thursday and was sure I would get a phone call that morning to come pick her up because she was so tired, I thought she would give them a rough time. By noon, I thought I was home free because I hadn't gotten a call and they go down for a nap at 12:00. I had to go to work that morning because I had a scheduled meeting with the wheelchair vendor to make modifications to several children's chairs. At 12:37 I got two phone calls right in a row. One from the downtown ESE office, the other from the daycare. I knew it couldn't be good. The daycare was calling all my contact numbers to get a hold of me to tell me that Regan had severe rashes on her feet and hands and was screaming and scratching herself like crazy. The ESE secretary called my mom and told her the daycare had called and couldn't get ahold of me. My mom works in the downtown school building and so the when Karen, the ESE secretary, heard that the daycare had a "serious" concern, she called my mom. I travel to 14 different schools and so they don't always know what school I am at. Calling my cell phone is the most direct way of getting ahold of me, but they tried that number second. I immediately went to the daycare. I couldn't get ahold of my mom, her secretary told me she was out looking for me and Regan. We ended up pulling into the daycare at the same time. We went in and Ms. Barb, the daycare director met us and was very worried. She said Regan had been itching and screaming and she had a severe rash on her hands and feet and they were starting to swell. She had read what I wrote in her medical information and I had said to call immediately if she developed a rash and she knew some of her medical history and she was concerned. I got Regan and we called the doctor who said to come in right away.

We arrived at the doctor and one of the things they did was a strep test. I won't bore you with all the details, but basically they were not sure if it was a definite positive. Dr. Jones threw out several possibilities, Kawasaki syndrome being the one he thought it looked like the most. She didn't have a fever though and so he was ruling that out for now. He said that Dr. MacKoul said many asians get a rash on the hands and feet with strep so we were treating it like strep for now. He pointed out one patch of redness, not rash, on the calf of her leg. He said it looked like the beginning of a skin infection and if it changed at all to call the office or get to the ER immediately. He said it was probably just a no name skin infection, but to get it looked at if it got worse because of the word I am getting so sick of hearing: MRSA. His indecision about her diagnosis did not make me feel comfortable. After the visit there were still unanswered questions that made me worry. His worry about the redness increased my worry.





That night, we were up for hours with her screaming and itching her feet. The next morning I thought things looked better. I had a flat tire, had to walk Konnor to school (he was late, of course) and get my brother to drive me to my mom's work so that I could borrow her van. This took a couple of hours and by the time we got to my mom's Regan had the same redness on her calf showing up on her underarm. Her axillary lymph nodes were also very swollen. Her calf looked worse. I called the doctor they said to come in immediately. By this time, I am panicked and managed to be a crybaby when I called my work to tell them I wouldn't be in.





We got in right away and saw Dr. MacKoul. I LOVE her. Can I say it one more time: I love her! She is awesome. She peeks in the door and shakes her finger at Regan and says, "You're going to be the death of me little girl!". I said, "You!" and she laughed and said she has nothing on me! I will say, I have so much more appreciation for parents who have chronically ill children. It will break you if you let it. I don't know how they are so strong. The mental strain is unreal. I can deal with chronic health issues. I just am terrified of it being life threatening again.





Dr. MacKoul examined Regan and said that the redness is not connected to any skin opening. She had several massive mosquito bites on her legs that were healing and I was so scared that had provided a skin opening, but the redness was not around them. She said the redness on the arm also did not have an opening it was surrounding. It looked exactly like the MRSA did when she was in the hospital. Dr. MacKoul said she didn't think it was and we were going to put her on a steroid to treat the redness and provide her some relief from the itching. She did say if it got worse, she would be on stand by this weekend for me to call. She said she would let her husband (who was on call this weekend) to tell her if I called and she would meet me at the office to personally look at Regan. That is a great doctor! We had a joking conversation about me just needing to make a standing appointment every month, and Dr. MacKoul mentioned that there were about five patients in her practice who the office staff know are to get immediately seen if they call. We had the dubious honor of being one of them! While I was there, I got to meet the triage nurse, Betsy who I have had many conversations with on the phone, but hadn't gotten to meet. Dr. MacKoul tracked her down when I casually mentioned that one day I wanted to meet her. Betsy and I had a nice little conversation and it was nice to put a face to a voice! It is just a great office. I feel confident in Dr. MacKoul's clinical judgment and she put my mind to ease once she examined Regan.





The concern with Regan's MRSA is that there are only two drugs that it is responsive to. You can't treat it with the regular protocol because it is an unusual strain. MRSA is very common, her strain of MRSA is not. The infectious disease doctors said they had only seen one other case so resistant to all meds. That is why they feel it came from China, because it is such an unusual strain. The only effective drugs must be administered through IV and that means staying in the hospital. The second concern is how it went systemic and began spreading up her body. My constant fear is, if it comes back I don't want it to become resistant to the two drugs it responds to now.





The other great thing about Dr. MacKoul is that she has such great clinical judgment and the steroid gave Regan almost instant relief. She was happy within one hour. After not sleeping for about a week (she must have been getting sick and feeling the beginnings of illness), we slept in that night until 9:30 the next morning!!!!! Sleep has never felt so good! I was a walking zombie all week and so I felt so refreshed! Her arm and leg look no worse and so we feel it isn't MRSA, but just a viral skin thing like Dr. MacKoul said. I am so glad all my fears were unfounded!

Four Day Weekend

Library event, you can click on any picture to make it bigger.
Playing hide and seek with her cousin! She had undressed herself trying to get me to let her shower!

This weekend was a four day weekend for me.....the school district had a holiday on Thursday celebrating the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah and then on Friday was a Hurricane Make-Up day which we very fortunately did not have to use this school year. It certainly didn't feel like a four day weekend, where did it go?

On Thursday, we threw papers, ate lunch with Framma and spent a half an hour or so at the Calusa Nature Center. Marmie was supposed to have his first day of obedience school, but it got rained out. He missed last week because I went to Tyler's memorial service. I hope he isn't a obedience school drop-out before he even attends his first class!!

Friday afternoon was spent at the library at a very neat science show. I love the Cape Coral library and all the good events that present. They are all for free and really have had a wide variety of events. All of them have been great! Regan was learning to sit still for more than 1 minute and Konnor loved watching them make exploding lava, slime, a soda bottle powered rocket, and other things. They then have a ton of books to encourage the kids to read about the topic that was presented. Next week is Aesop, one of my favorites!

I had to take another continuing ed course on Saturday. 101 Things to Do with a Gait Belt. It was interesting, but I would rather have been home! I now have to take a few more hours on the internet and I am done! Saturday evening, my mom and I began working on the church nursery. We are in charge of painting, renovating and cleaning, and it is quite the project!

Regan is really coming along with feeding herself and dressing herself. She really tries so hard to get dressed. She can almost do most of her shorts and skorts, but can't figure out the shirts! She has now decided she loves showers and will start undressing and lead me to the shower and try to convince me to turn it on. She is still needing to be convinced she is not going to shower two or three times a day! I love that she is into hygiene, but that is overdoing it! ;)

She has also had a growth spurt.....in her feet! She has been able to wear the same pair of squeaky shoes that I brought home from China. She has been in size 3 shoes since she came home. I had bought her a couple of size 4s, but they had been too big and she would walk right out of them. She is now officially in size 4. Another interesting, but totally useless bit of trivia: her shoe size and her diaper size coincide. She used to be in size 3 diapers (purples as she calls them!) and has now moved into 4s.

The charming thing she learned in daycare was to scream "mine!" whenever she wants something. Not the most wonderful lesson to bring home. We are working on cutting that out of her repertoire!

More Beach Pictures

Regan is just so darned cute that I had to post new pictures!! I also had to say a few more things that I have forgotten to post.

1. Regan's favorite movie is "You've Got Mail". I have absolutely no idea why. It isn't very exciting or flashy, but for whatever reason if I put that movie in she is entranced. We put it in sometimes when I am cleaning house or cooking dinner because it is one of my favorites and yet I don't have to sit down to follow the plot. As soon as she hears the theme music she will literally come running from wherever she is to watch.

2. Regan loves music and activity and I had posted earlier about how she will copy people and mimic their poses. She does this all the time with whatever is going on the tv also. I was flipping through channels and a Justin Timberlake concert was on the tv. She tried mimicking all of his dance moves and arm movements! She will also do this with commercials or random tv series. Just pick up and mimic how they are standing or what they are doing with their arms....things like that.

When I have more time I'll have to remember to post about this new things she has learned from daycare!

Beach Time and Konnor's Tooth Loss

This Friday, my mom and I took Regan to the beach. We got there about sunset time and watched the sun go down. This was Regan's first trip to the beach and she loved it! She loved wading in the water and playing in the sand. She kept wrinkling her toes back and forth. She would have taken off and tried to swim if we didn't keep reeling her back to shore! I love watching her experience and discover new things....it is an awesome feeling!

Konnor had a big night last night, he lost his first tooth! My mom is going to make his tooth pillow and then the tooth fairy will come visit! He was EXTREMELY excited!!!

Konnor is the Big 6!!

I finally had had enough of Regan's hair hanging in her face. I took a pair of scissors and decided that if I totally butchered her hair, it would as least grow back. Not an easy task to cut the hair of a 19 month old who never sits still. My strategy was to cut a piece everytime she would walk by me! My mom is always trying to convince me to leave it down. She likes it better down, I like it better in pigtails. At least now, she can have it down without looking like a ragmuffin!
Konnor and Jason in their fishing outfits.
Fishing off the pier. You can't really see it, but Regan is crying hysterically! She hates these giant people and critters who always want to take their picture with her!
Regan doing one of the things that she does best...... talking on the phone! (Please ignore the mismatched outfit, we were "bumming around" at home! ) Notice she is all dolled up with her "bracelet" on.

We had a very busy week this past week. On Saturday, Jason (my brother) signed he and Konnor up for a fishing tournament being hosted by McDonald's. All proceeds go to benefit the Ronald McDonald House. It was an awesome event! It was a $20 dollar registration fee and it included a fishing rod, tackle box, t-shirt, trophey and lunch. Konnor had a great time! It was the beginning of his birthday celebration.

On Sunday, we had a cake that my brother made and then Konnor's mom picked him up because she wanted to have him for his birthday. We don't mind, because we almost never celebrate on the official day. Regan's birthday was celebrated 6 months late! The birthday celebration justs keeps going!

On Monday September 3rd, Konnor turned 6!!!!!

On Wednesday, I had an appointment with our adoption social worker to complete Regan's second post placement visit. I tried mowing the lawn on Tuesday, but of course my lawnmower broke a belt. I told Jennifer my disclaimer was that I tried, but don't judge me on the grass! I hate yardwork. Despite the yard tribulations, it was nice to catch up with Jennifer. She had a new referral to deliver to a family and she was driving to meet them after our appointment. How exciting! I will never, ever forget the excitement of Regan's referral and I am so happy for everyone experiencing that wonderful emotion! Jennifer and I sat and talked while we completed Regan's paperwork and we did some extra paperwork while Jennifer was here ;)

Thursday was not such a good day. I attended a memorial funeral for a little 5 year old little boy. Please keep Amy, Jimmy, and their family in your prayers as they mourn the loss of their five year old son. As unbelievable as it is, this is the second child that they have lost. I am devastated. I saw him for therapy from the time he was 8 months old until he was almost 4. For over two years, I was at their house 2-3 times per week. Tyler was the most awesome little boy. He would smile at the sound of your voice and even when he was fighting seizures, aspiration fears, and various other medical concerns, he would give the most amazing smile and laugh. It makes you come home and hug your own baby that much tighter.