These Moments Go Way Too Fast

Maliana ~

There were a lot of moments that gave me pause this week, reminders to stop and soak in each precious second because they are all so fleeting and seem to go faster and faster as you get older.

The first thing that comes to mind was, in our rush to get out the door on Friday morning, I hear you audibly gasp and say, "Oooh, look at the sunrise!"

After feeling so stressed in just trying to get us on our way to speech in one piece, this was exactly the reset I needed that morning. Then as we left speech you were so tired, insisting I carry you as we walked out to the car and laying your head on my shoulder. In spite of your long legs dangling nearly past my knees, I loved that at 6 years old, you still felt comforted by and wanted me to do that. I love you so much. Once again, a much needed reset.

In fact, that morning I was feeling so good that you and I decided to pay it forward to the car behind us at Tim Horton's and bought their order. Quickest way to giving yourself a boost is to do something nice for someone else. It totally works. For real.

It was a gorgeous day and after school we were both pretty pooped so we spent some quiet time on the back deck together. Me with a glass of wine and a magazine; you with your I-Pad and a snack. Before I knew it, you'd migrated over to my lap, however I didn't mind because it was getting chilly and you brought your big fuzzy blanket with your warm little body. And once again, it was another one of those moments that are fewer and farther between as you get older, which only makes them all that much sweeter when they happen.

We had our first parent-teacher conference with Miss Stenger this week too. She is very happy with you, says you're right on track academically, and while you were shy at first with the other kids, you have become very comfortable now. You love to help, try to work things out with classmates first before asking for help from the teacher (which evidently is a challenge at this age), and while you are described as having "a big personality in a tiny body", Miss Stenger also adds that you are very humble too. There are 17 boys in your class and only 7 girls this year (yikes!) so Miss Stenger said that you girls have become pretty close with each other, however you do a great job of being kind and talking to everyone. The conference couldn't have gone better. She is a great teacher!

Speaking of being kind, when we got home that night you challenged Daddy to some Wii. While I'm not typically a huge fan of video games myself, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you say things like,
"Yessshh!", "Oh awe-shome!", "It's ok, Dad!" and "Nice job, Dad!" as you soundly whooped his butt. I love that big, supportive heart of yours.

And along with all of that sweetness, there's definitely some sass and humor in you too. Here are a couple recent Mali-isms:

~While discussing how old one of your teachers at daycare is, you said, "Mom! Miss Jessica is in the same lane of old as you!" ...(We're both in our thirties).

~In your frustration at a YouTube video that kept buffering and interrupting what you were watching, you said, "Mom! This thing keeps buffalo-ing!"

I don't dare correct any of these little sayings of yours because this stuff...this is the good stuff. The stuff I will miss one of these days when I'm old and gray(er).

This weekend we spent a lot of family time together, whether it was just our immediate family or you getting to spend time with your cousins and other extended family. It was great!

We had a family night on Friday where we invited Lao Lao over and enjoyed our first crock pot meal of the year (chicken fajitas ~ yum!) and then challenged each other to our first ever "big ass cookie" decorating contest. It was WAY too much sugar for any of us to ingest but it was a lot of fun and you get the biggest kick out of these little contests we have started. I'll have to see what other things I can make into contests for our Friday Family Fun Nights this winter.

you were a big help with crock pot prep

getting the fajita buffet ready

yours and Audrey's creation

Lao Lao's masterpiece

my floral designed cookie
(and a Mali photo bomb)

Saturday you attended your manadarin class with Daddy while I went to a 5K to raise money for pancreatic cancer research and support Christina (Lainey's mommy) whose own mother is battling this disease right now. It was a good morning for the race, the weather was cool, the trees were beautiful and there was a sea of purple shirts on thousands of people all there to support the cause. Christina had asked me to bring a pair of hair clippers and at the end, she had me shave all of her hair completely off. You see, her mom has just lost all of her hair due to the chemotherapy she needs to help her fight this disease. Christina is doing this in solidarity with her mama so that she doesn't feel so alone and as another reminder of Christina's love and support for her. While I took the clippers to her head, I held my emotions together pretty well...she even joked with me that I seemed to be enjoying it a little too much. But...as I'm typing this, I'm getting tears in my eyes. This kind of gesture, Mali...this is just one great example of courage and love. I'm so inspired by people like Christina. I feel very lucky to call her a friend. These kinds of people...these are the good ones.

the Purple Stride is about to start!

the Doelling(s)

shaving Christina's head

maybe I did have a *little* fun

Jenny, Christina, Lainey and yo mama

After the race, I met you and Daddy out at Dill's Greenhouse for their Fall Fun Fest where Joey, Alex, Sammy, Uncle Kevin, Memaw and Papaw were too. It was a bright and sunny autumn day and you girls had so much fun together.

barrel rides

Papaw trying to capture some of you
and Sammy's shenanigans

Joey and Alex on the hayride

you were irritated with my camera here...
but it's still a cool shot
(Uncle Pat was even driving the tractor!)

I snuck this one of you and Sammy chatting

After that, we headed out to Kevin and Beth's where we celebrated Sammy's 6th birthday. We all love going out there and playing together (both little and big kids, alike).

birthday cake for Sammy!

Memaw and Papaw

Uncle Kevin feeding the goats some graham crackers

And click HERE and HERE to see your new tricks and silliness on their trampoline!

They were kind enough to let you sleep over and then go to church with them the next morning. Daddy picked you up from the church and you headed over to get your hair cut. Since there was a wait, you went next door and grabbed a bite at Gena's where you ate 4 (yes, 4!) eggs! Someone's getting ready to grow some more!

this picture came with a caption that read,
"I ate 4 eggs!"

I also got this text from you (via Daddy):

The rest of the day on Sunday we carved pumpkins, hung out at home and acted completely silly and obnoxious (little and big kids, alike) until you went to your first private swim lesson since group lessons have ended. You requested Audrey come along and watch you too and being the awesome aunt that she is, she did.

you told me, "Less pictures, more work!"
(I guess you were on to my trick of taking pictures
so I didn't have to help with the pumpkin guts!)

Daddy worked hard on his Frankenstein pumpkin

vampire and Frankenstein

After swim lessons, we headed over to Lao Lao's for some of her world famous chili. Daddy had eaten two bowls before we told him it was vegetarian. Ha ha, Daddy. Tricked you! Anyway, it was our first family dinner over at Lao Lao's new place (Uncle Flint came too) and it felt really cozy. It's nice to have her so close. They came back with us briefly so you could show them your freshly carved jack-o-lanterns.

You even gave our new jack-o-lanterns their own spooky Halloween soundtrack. Here, see for yourself!

Click THIS LINK to see the video.

Next up ~ Halloween week! This should be fun!
Love,
Mama

Family, Framily, and Fall Foliage

Maliana ~

It was peak fall color this week. Gorgeous weather (with a little rain) and oranges, yellows, reds, and maroons on the foliage that could make a grown man weep. I love this time of year and my only gripe is that it doesn't last nearly long enough. That being said, I'll work backwards from the weekend to the beginning of the week.

On Saturday morning, you and I attended a workshop for adoptive families called "The Power of Me". The children's group that you participated in revolved around how to handle the topic of adoption if it is brought up by someone else and how to handle questions that you may or may not want to answer, basically helping you remember that just because someone asks you a question about your life or brings up the topic to discuss does not mean you have to share anything you don't want to and to remind you that you are always in control of how much or how little you wish to share with others. I hope you got some useful information out of the group and I am so grateful that some of your Fu friends (Mia, Lainey, and Gia) were there with you for support. My group for adoptive parents centered around having a discussion with two birth mothers. It was a wonderful group and I was so grateful to hear that perspective. We even discussed the possibility of choosing an appropriate age to form a group for adoptive children to talk with birth mothers so that they could ask them questions that you either might not feel comfortable talking to Daddy and me about or questions that would be helpful to hear from a birth mother. You and your friends in the Fu group are too young for this particular kind of group right now, but I imagine it could be a useful resource at some point as you get older and begin to parcel out your life story and identity. There were a lot of emotions during the grown-ups' group and the one thing that was very evident from birth mother and adoptive parent perspectives alike was how much you children are loved and thought of every single day. We all just want to do what's best for you and often feel at such a loss and/or completely lost no matter what we try. The place where any adoptive child's story begins is a place of pain and separation and so it's a very complicated issue for anyone involved. I guess that's why I am so grateful for the support we can all find in groups, workshops, and friendships like these.

Regardless of the heaviness of our morning workshops, it was nice to see our buddies again and afterwards, you and I headed up to the church playground on the hill to have a really fun time under the golden foliage surrounding the area. We had the place all to ourselves and I loved just being silly with you, belly laughing as we ran from jungle gym to fort to merry-go-round, etc.

You chose Taco Bell for our lunch afterwards and as we ate, I talked to you a bit about the morning's groups. One of the things that came up in our parents' group was wondering how we can help you kids feel more comfortable talking to us about difficult topics, in particular, adoption. At this point in our lives, I find myself waiting for you to ask more questions about your birth mom (and family) but you don't say much yet. On the one hand, I don't want to force the issue; but on the other hand, I definitely want to make sure that you know it's a completely open topic in our family and we welcome any discussion, no matter what. I may not have the answers that you seek, but I will always be here to listen and explore or navigate with you any time you wish. So far, you seem to clam up or not say much when I ask you directly about any potentially emotional topics, so while we ate our tacos, I said, "You know, Mali. I think about your China mommy a lot. Is it ok for me to talk to you about her when I think about her?" And to my surprise, this approach seemed to evoke a more receptive response and you said, "Sure!" I was so delighted to see the door crack open just a bit more for us in this area.

Baby steps. One by one. We'll get there.

At lunch we also discussed our cousin Allie's wedding which was that night. You stayed home to party down with Memaw and Papaw but Daddy, Lao Lao and I got all gussied up to celebrate with Allie and Blake. You made sure to tell me, "Mom, tell Allie I said hi and also make sure to get a romantic picture of her wedding dress"... Well, Punkin'...here it is!

And here are a few shots from before and at the wedding too... See, we all clean up pretty nicely for some old folks!

Uncles Matt and Mark

Jack and Cindy
(Matt, Mark, and Lori's Mom and Step Dad)

and here's your lao lao, man-handling
the groom...poor Blake ~ ha ha!

On Sunday we kept up the momentum of seeing family and fall foliage and wound up out at "the farm" as I used to call it as a kid. We drove out near Bellefontaine to Jack and Cindy's house where Uncles Matt and Mark spent most of their childhood. They were in town from Austin TX for Allie's wedding and so we were going to soak up as much of them as we could. We got to spend time with more of their family members and in particular, Jack and Cindy, people that we have known for many moons and have only in recent years with whom we have been able to reunite. Aunt Lori, Allie's mama and Cindy's daughter, was very near to our minds and hearts with the wedding this weekend and the entire event was very emotional. It was nice to step out into the country, be in the company of others who adore Lori as well, and embrace each other and the peace of the land out there. It truly is a little slice of Heaven and made my heart soar to see you enjoying yourself just as I had as a child. Watching you explore reminded me of the days I would run around with Uncle Matt and Uncle Mark on that same property over 25 years ago. Uncles who felt more like brothers to me, and still do. Here...see for yourself.

you and Zoe (Jack and Cindy's great-
granddaughter) climbing the dirt pile
from where Jack is digging a lake

you in front of the stone wall that I used to sit and eat
many meals on when I would visit the farm as a child

Daddy and Mark walking past the lake and
up the driveway to the house

Uncle Matt and Lao Lao

you enjoying a swing under the beautiful tree in front
of the stone wall I mentioned earlier

The rest of the week we also had some more fun visits with "framily". Audrey came to see us after work and since she was still in her uniform, you just had to go and grab your "workin' man's" suit and I snapped this picture. You crack me up!

this looks like a shady business deal if
I ever saw one!

We attended the Octoberfest at your school too. I helped the PTA and worked the ticket table for the first portion of it and then joined you and Daddy for some yummy shaved ice treats and a stroll through the book fair.

showing us your tree from art class

We also helped E celebrate her actual birthday with a visit to Uncle Joe and Aunt Tina's for some yummy Mexican food and toasts with caramel apple sparkling juice for you girls. So many laughs and squeals...time with them is good for the soul. We also got to meet their new puppy, Bea. A rescue from the local shelter and the sweetest little critter we've met in a while. So excited to welcome a new four-legged member into our "framily".

Bea gives "hugs" just like Suzy does!

And finally, we wrapped up your last group swimming lesson this week. Unexpectedly, they pulled out a canoe in the pool and let you guys ride around in it. Clearly, the final swimming lesson was all about fun and judging by your smile below, that's just what you had.

Now, let's all take a lesson from you and jump into next week with a big grin!

Love,
Mama