Two Year Post Placement

Today is our daughter's 2 Year Gotcha Day Anniversary!  And there's nothing quite like scheduling a post-placement visit with the social worker on this celebratory day.  Scheduling this appointment has been nothing but drama for over a month, and it should have been done long before today, but it's done now [insert large exhale].  Now we just pray, pray, pray that the report gets written this week and mailed to our agency by it's due date on June 7.

You may recall our list of required social worker visits and reports, and it now looks like this:

1 Month After Adoption DONE!

6 Months After Adoption DONE!

1 Year After Adoption DONE!

2 Years After Adoption DONE!

3 Years After Adoption (May 2015)

5 Years After Adoption (May 2017)

That means we only have 2 reports left, one next year, then we get to skip a year (and there will be much rejoicing!), and one when L has been home for 5 years.  Then we are DONE with our reporting to China....... unless they change their rules, which is always a possibility (please God, no!!!!).

Not to be a whiner or anything, but today's appointment came at the end of a very long weekend full of drama, drama and more drama.  It started on Thursday when Jay drove to work and his car died about a mile from our home.  We had it towed to our friend's shop and almost $500 later, it's running again.  CRAP!  On Friday, Super E was running upstairs to play, his foot slipped off a step and he came crashing down, hitting the stairs with his EYE!  Oh, how he screamed and how it ballooned up and turned as purple as an eggplant.  Shortly thereafter, Jay came home very early and announced his back was out.  He has a herniated disc and while it hasn't flared up in the 2 years since we've been in Texas, it sure is rearing it's ugly head right now.  He spent the entire weekend upstairs in bed watching TV hoping the muscles would stop their spasm.  I ran out on some errands and Super E vomitted back at home.  Worried it was from the head bump, I called the nurse who told me to just keep a good eye on him.  It was a long night of checking up on him every hour or so.  Then on Sunday night I was making a chopped salad for dinner and accidentally cut a good portion of my thumb.  It was bad enough that I left the kids home with my husband and went to urgent care for some steri-strips and dermabond.  No stitches thankfully.  Oh, no, it doesn't stop there.  My husband ended up sick in the bathroom all night on Monday night.  He's scheduled for a fresh MRI this week to see if his disc is worse than in years past.  Yeah, Memorial Day was awful.

The visit today went well but you can imagine how I wondered what my social worker would say to all of us, minus the girl and Super C, being banged up.  Today's visit was much more detailed and I shared a little bit more of the ugly that this year has brought.  You see, this second year home with our Quiet Tiger has been harder than the first.  There may be a post about it later because I know I'm not the only mom who has struggled more in year 2 than in year 1.  Today I laid it all on the line and told my social worker about all our struggles.  She too assured me that it's all normal that she wasn't concerned.  She didn't offer much advice, but she said it's all typical adoption stuff.

But what I really came here to share with you were the required photos and accompanying captions that I was to send with the report.  It was much harder to choose with a full year in between reports, so I sent more than the standard 15 photos.  With the cheap cost of prints at Walmart, I didn't mind sending more pictures.

5 PICTURES OF L ALONE

(I chose more)

7-22-13
L on her 3rd birthday with some gifts
[My agency may choose not to use this because our dog is in the photo, but we'll see.]

7-22-13
L with her Cookie Monster birthday cake made by mommy

8-16-13
L at Sea World
She loves getting wet on the water rides

10-13-13
L's first visit to Ikea in Austin, TX
She loved the store

1-31-14
L in front of our home on a cool winter day

2-2-14
L in her qipao on Chinese New Year
She gets a new qipao for Christmas every year to wear on Chinese New Year

2-14-14
L on Valentine's Day

4-21-14
Cooking outside over a campfire at a friend's house in Illinois

5 PICTURES OF L WITH MOM & DAD

12-3-13
L and Mommy all dressed up and going to Daddy's Office Christmas Open House

12-21-13
L and Mommy at Horseshoe Bay, Texas

12-24-13
Family Christmas picture in front of our Christmas tree

5-4-14
Mommy, Daddy & L at church

5-21-14
Mommy, Daddy & L at home

5 PICTURES OF L WITH SIBLINGS, EXTENDED FAMILY & FRIENDS

(I sent more -- too hard to choose)

7-2-13
Our 3 beautiful children at home

7-4-13
Celebrating America's Freedom on the 4th of July

5-27-13
Out to dinner with Aunt Patty (paternal great-aunt)   [China likes to know the relation.]
in Kingsland, Texas

10-31-13
Halloween costumes
Darth Vader, Minnie Mouse and Obiwan Kenobi
I tried to get L to pretend to be scared, but she was laughing

10-27-13
L and her brothers were invited to a birthday party at a gym
with inflatable bouncy houses!
She thought this was the best place ever!

12-3-13
Our 3 kids visit Santa Claus
L was scared at first of the man in costume, but she quickly warmed up to him
and told him what toys she wanted for Christmas.

12-21-13
L and her brothers with her 2 cousins (paternal) from Dallas, Texas.

12-22-13
Beautiful Christmas lights at Sea World with our new friend
whose daughter was also adopted from China!

2-2-14
Chinese New Year Lion Dance.
It was a cold day and I had to put a jacket over her beautiful qipao.

3-6-14
Long time friend Eileen from Minnesota visits Texas.
Eileen and her husband Vern spent many years in China on sabbatical.
This was Eileen's first time meeting L in person.

4-14-14
L with her Godparents from North Carolina who we met for lunch in Chicago!
This was the first time they met in person!
Their son in the white shirt was adopted from the USA and he and L were fast friends.

4-15-14
While in Chicago we met with other children who came home from China around the same time!
This was great fun for all families with children from China!

4-15-14
Dinner with Grandpa Collins (paternal grandfather) in Chicago.

4-17-14
Hugs from Grammie (maternal grandmother) at her home in Chicago.

4-21-14
Easter Sunday hunting for plastic eggs filled with candy outside.
Uncle Todd (maternal uncle) and cousin Emme visit from Minnesota.
This was the first time they met L in person!

4-21-14
L and her Uncle Todd.
Uncle Todd travels to China annually for work.

Happy Gotcha Day, Quiet Tiger!

School's Out!

Today was our last day of school!  What a great year of homeschool! 

Super E started his 1st grade year barely reading.  He was still sounding out simple, 3-letter words.  This week he shocked me by reading a Level 3 Reader and rarely needing my help.  Reading still isn't his favorite subject, but he has done a super job!  His favorite subject this year was Science, with a particular fondness for his unit on Space.  We'll keep working hard on reading over the summer just to keep him challenged and hopefully instill in him a love of reading!  We'll also keep working on those important math facts!

Super C's 5th grade year highlight was probably his History book about the World Wars.  We had a great book with lots of internet links.  My boy definitely has an appreciation for our military!  Perhaps he'll go to the Air Force Academy like his Uncle Todd and Cousin Scott.  Super C also completed 2 years of math in 1 year!  He started out completing 5th grade very quickly and in late January he started 6th grade math.  He still has a few more lessons to complete and he'll have those done by the end of this month.  Next year, we have high hopes of completing both 7th and 8th grade math in 1 year.  Might as well keep him challenged.  That's the beauty of homeschool!  This summer C will keep a writing journal as I haven't been all too happy with the writing portion of our current curriculum.  He already has some fun fiction titles written down.  We thought of even starting a kids blog that your kids could follow.  Stay tuned.

Our co-op was really fun this year too.  Last year it was solely dedicated to weekly PE classes at our local park.  This year, participating moms rotated teaching the group on different subjects.  I had the privilege to teach about Chinese New Year in February and Limb Differences in April.  Both were very well received and I was really impressed with the group of kids we have in our co-op.  My kids have made some good friends who we see multiple times each week.  I'm getting to know the moms better too and that makes our weekly Tuesday gatherings all the better.  While our co-op has wrapped up for the year already (due to the increasing Texas heat outside), we still have our Year End Party on the calendar for the end of May that we're looking forward to.

The plan for next year is to absolutely continue homeschooling!  We'll keep using Sonlight Curriculum for our core and I'll switch to a different writing program for Super C.  One friend is again willing to lend me her used curriculum for 2nd grade and all I will have to look for is used 6th grade curriculum.  What a huge blessing that is to us!

And just so you know, our Quiet Tiger listens in on everything we've learned about this year.  Case in point, on our way into Walmart one day, she just blurted out a story about WWII without any prompting from me or the boys.  We weren't even discussing school at the moment, so I have no idea where it all came from.  She said, "Mom, in WWII, there was the Air Force and they flew in the sky and shot at people and they died.  And they were under water [she was referring to submarines] and they shot at people and they died too.  And we won."  That's a 3-year-old's take on World War II and I think that's pretty darn impressive!  One more funny, just because I can:  On our trip to Chicago over Easter, L insisted that she knew math.  So, Super C asks her what one plus one is and she answers, "2."  Then he asked her what 2 plus 2 is and her response was, "Math."  Yes, my girl, 2 plus 2 is math.  Too smart for her own good!

Our Quiet Tiger will begin some preschool activities at home in the fall but we'll also attend the ABC Club at our local library.  She is excited.

Great job this year, Super E and Super C (and Quiet Tiger too)!  I am so proud of you!

My boys with their certificates of completion!