Cybershop- Help a child

I found out about this yesterday (or perhaps I've always known and forgot).

If you're going to do any shopping on Amazon... for the holidays or any time of the year, enter through this site, and shop as usual. 5-15% of the total of your purchases will go to this wonderful organization. To help me remember, I made a bookmark for my browser, and labeled it "Amazon".

Help a child by shopping... what could be easier?

(ETA: I've added this link to my sidebar for your convenience!)

Trimming the Tree

Yesterday we put our tree up. Big ceremonious event. Joe and I pondered in the living room for a good 20 minutes, trying to decide where to put it this year. We go through this every year. Kai watched us and kept saying, "What you doing?". Our final decision involved moving most of our living room furniture around to accommodate our green friend. Part of the problem is that we bought our tree 5 years ago, when we lived in a different (bigger) house, with a different (bigger) living room. Don't worry, our tree is not a bundle of dried twigs 5 years later...it's still green and beautiful.

Tonight we pulled out the boxes of Christmas stuff out and decorated our tree. I know some people have a very put together, matchy- matchy tree. I know some people have a different themed tree every year. Not us. We have a very homey tree. All (or most) of our ornaments have been gifts from friends and family. The only ones that match are because they're part of an ornament series. We have fake glass balls that are 11 years old and seem to make it through every holiday season. Best $5 we ever spent. I wouldn't have our tree any other way.

To me, our tree ornaments are like a history of our life together. One from the first Christmas we were married, one from the first Christmas after buying a house, one from the first Christmas with our little man. Part of the ornament fun is seeing everything that's been packed away for a year. I will inevitably forget about a few key ornaments, and be pleasantly surprised when I find them.

Last year, Kai didn't "help" us decorate the tree. Tonight he did.

I loved telling him about all the ornaments, who they were from or what had happened the year we got them.

He loved crawling under the tree and pretending to be a present.

(And at the risk of sounding like a total sap... he is the best present ever!)

Backlog

I did pretty good all month. I only cheated a few times and back dated posts. Until the holiday weekend hit. Now, I haven't blogged for 4 days, and I'm not going to catch up... so there. It's almost bedtime on the Sunday night of a busy, fun weekend away. I'm exhausted and have to work tomorrow (only 1/2 day though!). So, I will hit the highlights of each day.

Thursday: Heading to Portland to visit the fam. We were fortunate to be able to spend time with both our families, and everyone was on their best behavior. It was a delightful day.

Friday: Holiday Parade in downtown Portland.

Good times. Good weather...

what more can you ask for?

Kai's reaction to the first band in the parade.

He didn't like the tubas.

Visit to OMSI.

Friday night: date night for Joe and I! My parents watched the little guy while we headed to Bridgeport for eating, movie and shopping. Fun times! (Sorry... no pictures!)

Saturday: Kai meets the big guy!

We also enjoyed a nice breakfast downtown with Joe's Mom. Kai was on his best restaurant behavior, and had a great time with Grandma!

Saturday evening: a belated birthday celebration for my Mom. Dinner out with the whole cousin crew and a trip to Zoo Lights! More fun memories!

We got home this afternoon, unpacked, put up the tree and decided on a whim to go to the tree lighting ceremony at a local shopping center. It's the closest thing we have to a "city tree" with a big lighting ceremony, and we could tell. I think everyone in town was there! All in all, the perfect Thanksgiving weekend to get us all in the "Tritmat" spirit!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in my bloggy world! I hope you all have a great holiday and safe travels. I hope you can find a quiet moment to savor your blessings and give thanks in the manner which you see fit. I know I will.

As most holidays are, I'm sure this will be an emotional one for me. After some strange stuff in my little world this week, I've come to realize how happy and sad these holidays can be. In years past, the holiday season has been hard because my heart ached for a child to share it with. Now, my emotions are on the other end of the spectrum... my heart overflowing with joy for the family we have.

Well, off to prepare for a weekend of holiday family fun. But first, my first run in over two weeks...since being sick. Gotta do damage control for later, you know!

Nearly Perfect

Joe put up our Chistmas lights today. As always, they are nearly perfect. In fact, if you ask me, I'd say they're perfect. Not if you ask our son. When we went out to look at them tonight, K stood in the front lawn, hands on hips, inspecting them. After a few minutes:

Joe: How do they look?

Kai: Pretty good, not dat yeyow one.

Joe: Which one?

Kai: Dat yeyow one...right dere.

Joe: What's wrong with it?

Kai: It turned da wong way. (While turning his whole body to demonstrate)

Gotta love the honesty!

Pick your battles

As you can tell, today was "one of those days". We actually had quite a pleasant day together, after the initial battle of the clothes. Obviously, he won. At least I got him to put long pants underneath. He is so totally Buzz crazy right now! He wears these shorts constantly; as soon as we get home or wake up, he takes off whatever he's wearing and puts these shorts on. And, heaven forbid, I should try to wash them...

I am finding myself picking my battles more and more as his ever-expanding independence, well... expands. I have to remember that as long as he's safe, warm, fed and healthy, nothing else really matters. I'm sure I got plenty of sidewards glances today as we were out running our errands (and getting a haircut!), but whatever, at least my son and I were not at war.

Doing everything...

...except writing!

Tonight I spent my whole free time making changes to my blog, but not writing! Bad girl!

Maybe tomorrow will be more enlightened.

Hey, nobody said it had to be a good post everyday!

The Motions

"This might hurt, it's not safe
But I know that I've gotta make a change
I don't care if I break,
At least I'll be feeling something
'Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?"

No regrets, not this time
I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love make me whole
I think I'm finally feeling something
'Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

'Cause I don't wanna go through the motions
I don't wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don't wanna spend my whole life asking,
"What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?""

--Matthew West

This song has been my "anthem", if you will, over the past 6 months or so. It's on my playlist and I hear it every time I work out or run. I find it so uplifting, and a great reminder of how I want to live my life. It's so easy to just go through life, one day after another, without taking time to really experience it, and try to make a difference in this world.

So, what keeps you going?

Saturday

So, not a super exciting day around here. Kai had gymnastics this morning, then hung out at home with Daddy while I got a haircut. Later this afternoon we decided to get out and brave the mall. Since Kai had been hangin' in his Mr. Incredible suit, he needed to get dressed first. I asked him to put his clothes on. A few minutes later I went to his room, and this is what I found...a fully dressed little boy, he had even gotten a clean shirt out of his closet.

He was pretty proud of himself!

Sharin' pretzels at the mall. Pretty much the only reason we go there...hehe...
Nap time has been pretty touch and go around here lately. Today it was a no-go. So of course, he falls asleep in the car on the way home, at about 5pm. He looked so peaceful.
He stays asleep coming inside, and takes a little snoozer on the couch. Not even the football game and power mixer woke him up. I love how he still snuggies with his favorite dog.
Hope yours was wonderful, too!

Are you teaching him Korean?

OK, so this question makes slightly more sense than, "Does he speak English?" That one just gets an eye roll.

But, are we teaching him Korean?...No. At least not right now. We can't teach what we don't know, right? Actually, the whole concept of teaching him about Korean culture is a very thin line for us. Yes, I want him to be aware of his birth culture, and celebrate the wonderful things about it. At the same time, I think it's important for us to realize that he'll be raised as an American. I don't want him to feel alienated from his peers because of emphasis we might place on Korean culture. Having recently listened to adult Korean adoptees talk about how they fit into Korean culture, we learned they simply don't. In Korea, international adoptees are looked at as more American than Korean. So, they're lost somewhere in between. Not quite American, not quite Korean. It is all very sad for us. Everyone wants so desperately for their child to fit in. It breaks my heart that someday, our little boy may very likely have a racial identity crisis. I think the best thing we can do is align him with other international adoptees, from Korea and elsewhere. These are the people who will be his biggest support... the others who have BTDT (been there, done that). The other thing we can do is work hard now to create (and maintain) an open communication about how he feels about this. I know he's a little young to really get it, but I think it's important to practice now, so it all comes naturally when he's older.

OK, so I got off on a little tangent...sorry. But, this has been on my mind recently. And afterall, isn't that what this whole blog thing is about?

Was it hard??

I've been asked this quite a few times: Was the adoption process hard? My answer: No.

Long? Yes. Emotional? Yes. Difficult at times? You bet!

But, overall, is was not really hard. Sure, we had to fill out stacks and stacks of paperwork. Jump when the government asked us to. Fill out 20 page interviews about ourselves. Look at ourselves in a way we never had before. Practice patience. But really, it was not hard. Lucky for us, we're the kind of people who can follow directions very well. That's really all it took. We had a list of steps to complete, and we did it.

As we were going through our homestudy and interview questions, we started joking that everyone who wanted to be a parent should go through what adoptive parents do. If that were the case, there would be a lot less people in this world...

Probably one thing that made it a little easier for us, was that we'd been on this journey to our child for many years, but there had never been a finish line. When we started our adoption process, we finally knew we would have our child at the end. So, it seemed whatever we were asked to do was fine, because it was all part of realizing our dream. Whatever timeline we were given was fine, because we knew we would have our child to hold when we got there...

Any way you cut it, adoption is a crazy roller coaster of emotions.

But now, to get those Good Morning hugs and snuggies... it was worth every single second.

No, the adoption process was not hard. The parenting process... well, that's another story...

Why adopt??

If I'm being completely honest and frank: our decision to adopt was purely selfish. We adopted because we wanted a child. We didn't adopt because we felt it was a humane act, or that we wanted to "save a child". We adopted because we wanted a family, and adoption is one way to build a family.

For us, adoption was the easiest and least risky road to parenthood. As most of you know, we struggled for years through battles with miscarriages and infertility. I still don't know what took us so long to get the message that it just wasn't gonna happen that way! Once we opened our hearts to adoption, it just all made sense. Everything fell into place.

Oh wait, I do know why we went through all those trying years... because our baby just wasn't ready for us yet!

Did you know?

That November is Adoption Awareness month? If you're not directly involved with adoption (or even if you are), you probably didn't. Not exactly being broadcast on the evening news every night. Any how, I thought since I'm blogging everyday this month anyways, and it IS adoption awareness month, I might make a few posts over the next few days to talk about some aspects of OUR adoption. Things you may or may not already know. So, if there's anything you're dying to know, leave it in a comment and I might just entertain your curiousity.

In other breaking news today... I have decided not to do my half marathon this weekend. I am bummed. But, this virus (whatever it is... and it is NOT H1N1...I do feel a little cheated by that) has gotten the best of me over the past 6 days, and the best of my lungs. While I could probably do the race and survive, it's probably not the smartest thing for me to do. Oh well, I'll have another chance in the Spring. Hopefully life will be a less exciting then.

Happy Birthday!!!

To my wonderful Mom! We hope you had a good day, and many blessings for the coming year. You're a very special lady, to us and to everyone who has the honor of knowing you. We love you lots!

We tried calling, but the birthday girl was off partying with her Bunco pals. Kai was so excited to wish someone Happy Birthday, he kept saying it to Grandpa over and over. Since he was in such the spirit, I whipped out my camera to catch the moment on tape.

Weekend at Home

I don't have much to blog about. We've barely left the house since we got home from work on Thursday. I haven't been having any profound thoughts; between the medicine head and trying to keep up with K, I haven't come up with any. I think this is the most we've been home ever! Here are some random facts from our weekend:

- watched Toy Story about 10 times (I really wish this was a joke...it's not)

- had coughing contests

- K managed to get through the whole day today without putting real clothes on; he wore his jammies until 11am when he dawned Mr. Incredible, he wore that until about 3pm when he went potty, he was nakey for a while, then pulled his Buzz Lightyear swim trunks out of his dresser and wore those until bedtime. Now he's in bed, back in his jammies with the swim trunks on top...we're picking our battles right now.

-the only housework I did was 2 loads of laundry (yet to be folded) and dishes. Let's just say we're really hoping not to have to show the house anytime soon.

-we learned that coughing seems to be much like yawning...once one person starts, everyone gets a turn.

-tried to keep everyone's medication schedules straight

-had more snuggie time on the couch than we've probably ever had before

Enough is Enough

Still a bunch of sickos around here. K and I have Dr. appointments in the morning. J is still just coughing, and we're praying he doesn't get worse until I get better. Two sick parents would be no good. I really hope we have something that an antibiotic can cure. I'm starting to become a whiny sick person. WAAAAAHHH!!!

Sick Day

Yesterday I was sent home from work. For the first time ever. The jig was up when my coworker hog-tied me and stuck the thermometer in my ear. It showed a low-grade fever, even with all the Motrin in my blood. I'm sure I was running a fever at least all day yesterday and possibly longer. J picked me up from work early and we went to get K at daycare. There we got the report that he'd been coughing and not up to his normal energy levels. Last night I was banished to the living room so Joe could get a good night's sleep and hopefully not whatever I have. I had a less than restful night's sleep as I traded off between the "snuggie chair" and the sofa. All I could think about was J getting up and leaving for work with K, and me going to sleep in my own bed for a few hours. (I was supposed to work today so daycare was already lined up and I was fully ready to use it so I could rest) That plan went out the window the second I saw K, his bright red cheeks revealing his condition. The thermometer revealed 102.6... he gets to stay home, too. Great.

Both our temps have remained normal with the wonder drug. We spent the day watching movies and trying to keep things low key. He perked up a little after J got home from work (Daddy's have that effect on little boys, don't they?), and played harder than I would have liked this evening.

I tried to talk him into "sleeping in" in the morning, and he asked "What's that?"

My point exactly...

Easy Way

Yes, I'm taking the easy way out tonight. Largely because I feel like I've been hit by a truck.

Can't say much...

Seriously. This morning brought some random laryngeal virus that robbed me of most of my voice. It is accompanied by much discomfort with swallowing, talking and coughing (of which there is also quite a bit). All this equalled a really fun day at work. One thing I am thankful for...no fever. That means it's not the dreaded H1N1 (which I shouldn't get anyways since I got the vaccine). I know, things could be worse...

I used to think getting sick was bad when I just had to talk at work all day. Now that's coupled with talking (sometimes a little loudly) to a 2 year old at home before and after work. Luckily, my hubby performed much of the talking activities this evening. Needless to say, now that K's in bed I am absolutely done talking for the day.

I just have to say, this stuff has been my saving grace today. A coworker suggested it this morning (cause she had the same thing, along with a few other fellow employees...wonder where I got it?), so J brought me some at work (which may have earned him the hubby of the year award). After lunch my throat was so irritated, my ears were starting to get shooting pains. A few sips of this wonder tea, and my throat (and ear) pain were subsiding.

So now, my evening plans are to snuggle up with my herbal heat wrap around my neck, sip more wonder tea, pop a few nyquil and drift off to sleepy land.

Dog Tired

Tonight I am just dog tired. This afternoon I completed my second (and final!) "long" training run for my half marathon in 10 days. I ran 12 miles. Pushing a stroller. Containing a 35 pound kid. And some other stuff. Enough said?

Really, I can't complain since it's my own crazy idea. But, I am really glad I won't be doing that again for a while. The running is fine, it's the stroller pushing that tends to get me after about 7 miles.

At least my plan worked. Like a charm. My plan that I could pull off one long run a week, without it horribly disrupting our weekend life. My plan that I could have K nap in his stroller once a week while I ran my little heart out. Last week I pulled a (nearly) 10 miler which took me about 1:50 to run, and K slept for a good hour of that. Today my 12 miler took me 2:02 (I was paying closer attention to my clock), and he slept 1:30 of it! Yes, I know, a little shabby from our still very solid 2 hr napper, but truth be known, success of naps at home is dwindling by the day. So in my book, an hour and a half is better than nothing (which is what it might have been without the rhythmic motion of my trusty stroller).

I'm hoping to fit in another few 5-7 milers before race day and call it good. I'm thinking of another half in the Spring. Wonder what I can do if I actually train for it?