Tuesday, September 5, 2006
I am not used to it being September
yet. I keep thinking it’s still August.
We had a very relaxed weekend. I
didn’t do much that was useful except go to the grocery store, pay bills, and
straighten up the house a bit. Alesia and I saw a really fun movie, The
Illusionist, about a 19th century magician caught up in a political
thriller. Very good movie.
Alesia went to Whitewater [water park with wave pool and water slides]
yesterday, with the Barr family. She
had a great time, although the lines were too long for the really elaborate
waterslides. She had fun playing in the wave pools. Her face was a bit pink
last night but not burned. I’m
glad she had a chance to just be outside and play and relax with the 5 Barr
kids, including her best friend Elena. Nice kids, all of them.
Bruce came in yesterday afternoon,
for a brief visit. He is helping with various projects around the house,
including putting new shelves in the food pantry and reorganizing that. The
pantry is already looking better. That’s a big project, and he has done a great
job. The space is much more efficient now.
We had a very early birthday
celebration dinner tonight, nothing elaborate. I got him a gift certificate to
Barnes & Noble and a couple of small things to unwrap. Mother gave him a
check. Lesleigh came over and gave him a sampler of Baklava, the Greek pastry
he loves. He seemed pleased with it all, but says he doesn’t “celebrate” any
more. I told him to remember, it’s better than the alternative.
I can’t remember what I’ve said
about the progress on my children’s book. It’s done and ready to go. I have
lined up an illustrator – my
friend Olga’s daughter, who is a terrific artist, and won’t charge me too much.
I have exchanged e-mails with a small local publisher and I hope that company will work out. They published a book by one of our
neighbors, who analyzes people’s handwriting and is really good at it. I like
the idea of using a local publisher, and the
prices aren’t bad. I should be able to sell copies on Amazon and hopefully
maybe I can recoup my
investment and make some money
to put towards Matthew’s adoption. I think I am going to do the English and
Russian texts on every other page, and the illustrations on the facing pages.
It’s exciting to ponder the choices.
I worked for a while yesterday on
adoption dossier documents. My assistant notarized everything today, bless her.
I am going to send in the dossier without the 171H so they can start translating
it – the agency said I can do that. Tomorrow I need
to make copies, then hopefully Thursday I can get them apostilled and
everything sent off. The apostille process for 21 documents will likely take an
hour or two – I will just have to take a book and wait.
An apostille is a statement from the
state of Georgia saying the notaries’ commission is in good standing – it’s required a lot on international documents. The copying will be a time-consuming thing too – I need 5 sets of copies, and there are
about 30 documents.
I dare not hope that even if a
lovely miracle occurs and I get my 171H in today that I will be able to get my
son home by Christmas. However, I can daydream about the possibility…
I have terrific cube neighbors at
my job. Nice ladies, all, and one of them has been a dear friend for years
– I worked with her at my last job, and she helped me get hired on
here. My neighbors all dress nicely –
they actually coordinate accessories
and everything. I, on the other hand, have never been interested in clothes,
and since I became a parent I care even less. I have always been a
disappointment to my mother, who finds clothes fascinating and has a flair for
putting together interesting outfits, with style. I think my disinterest in
clothes stems from the fact that I am put together from spare parts, and
nothing ever fits right. I am 5’4. Petite clothes usually don’t fit.
Normal clothes never fit. Most of my pants have waistbands that can be pulled
up and completely over my boobies, not that I’m into that. Plus size tweeners
like myself are really out of luck. Even when I was much thinner clothes were a
hassle. Having a big butt and fat little legs but a much smaller waist means
jeans never ever fit. In the last few years I’ve just stopped wearing jeans.
Once I turned 40 I embraced my inner frump and just started wearing completely
elastic-waisted pants. So be it.
Anyway, I was admiring one of my
cube neighbors while we were
both standing at the printer
today. She had on a pretty green blouse, black slacks, and stylish pumps that
were also green, and coordinated perfectly. I complimented her on her outfit. I
also said, “I have two goals
with my wardrobe choices. I try to be clean, and wear clothes without holes in
them. That’s it. Those are my only real concerns.” She laughed. She doesn’t
know how difficult it is sometimes to meet even those modest goals.
I think I’ve mentioned
that we have tadpoles in our birdbath. A frog somehow got in there and laid
eggs, and now we have probably 10-20 good-sized tadpoles in there. We watch
them every day – we
want to prevent them
jumping out and killing themselves on the bricks when their legs get bigger.
Once of my friends suggested putting a fine mesh of some sort over the birdbath
and I am going to try that. It would have to be accessible, because we drop in dog food for them.
Right now they have tails
but they are learning to breathe air. Bruce and Alesia were watching them
yesterday and Alesia saw a tadpole belly-up and looking dead, and she told
Bruce about it, sadly. She tried a sort of mouth-to-mouth – she blew on the tadpole, and it did
nothing. So she poked it, and it came to life and swam away! LOL
************************************************************************
I did a fair amount of thinking over the
weekend, about what Dr. Federici said, and Dr. Lucker. I feel strongly that Dr.
F underestimated Alesia’s intelligence. Bruce agrees with me – to the point of getting angry when we
discussed it yesterday. I like that. I like that he takes up for his niece. I
also think he was wrong about getting therapy for her behavior issues. I think
I can manage the behavior stuff without anything being radically different. I
don’t want to run a “boot camp”
sort of place, even though we’ve already got the pushups going. J I
want Alesia to feel that home is a haven, and Granny and Mom are her allies,
not her jailers. I don’t think that would accomplish anything.
I think some of Alesia’s behavior problems probably were the result of the FAE brain damage, and/or the APD issues. So I probably have been way too harsh sometimes and had too high expectations for her. I feel some guilt about that. However, I tell myself that I made the best decisions at the time. Beating myself up about past things now doesn’t do any good. All parents screw up with their kids; it’s inevitable. Maybe with time and love she will forget and/or forgive me.
************************************************************************
We finished watching a movie tonight after dinner, The Kid, a cute 2000 movie with Bruce Willis. Mother gave Coco her yogurt cup after dinner and Coco loves those. Well, Mother went to bed and when I went in there to make sure she was OK and give her the walkie talkie, Coco was in the middle of Mother’s bed, the chewed up yogurt cup nestled beside her. It was so cute.
[I keep a walkie talkie in my room at night and Mother has one by the bed, so if she needs me she can call me.]
