We have a Canadian in the house!

I was going to pace myself, really I was, but so much has happened that this just has to be a big post everyone.

First and foremost, you (and I) cannot believe what came in the mail today: Kaitlynn's Certificate of Citizenship! I applied on February 19th 2008, and here it is May 22 2008, a mere 3 months later and we have her citizenship card in hand!! We are just overjoyed and so excited that this came today, so unexpectedly (we received the form letter telling us it would take 13-15 months back in March!). Kaitlynn is now officially a Canadian Citizen... take a bow Kaitlynn!

Kaitlynn wearing her official Canadian team Olympic outfit, holding all the Beijing Olympic Mascots!

We celebrated two birthdays over the weekend: Kaitlynn and Tristan both have the same birthday, believe it or not (so does Zorro, for those dog lovers out there). First off, what a great birthday present to receive Kaitlynn's Citizenship Card. We got family pictures done with Grammy Carol (which I posted about all ready), and she got to have fun with the kids too! We did a dual theme: princesses for the girls, and hockey for the boys. Worked really well! Here are some choice moments:

Everyone gets their own cupcake to decorate, and I put a candle in each one that everyone gets to blow out.

For you picture takers out there, this is an amazing shot. I somehow managed to get Kaitlynn blowing out her candle... you can see the wisp of flame going out and you see Kaitlynn blowing! (more on the blowing below, for you parents considering adopting cleft affected kids)

I only like the candies and the icing! (She barely touched the cake)

My big boy Tristan who is now 7! Where does the time go?

Everyone around the table... yes, that is my 85% chocolate.
I can eat that type cause the sugar content is next to zero, and no I did not have any birthday cake! Did I mention that I have lost 24 lbs so far?

Now for the blowing: cleft affected kids cannot make a vacuum in their mouth when their palates are open. If you recall, Kaitlynn had her surgery back in February and she has healed nicely. The letters are coming out better now (we have nice n's and some p's coming), but creating that vacuum is hard when you are so used to being nasal. She tried and tried blowing into the party favour, which no outcome. Then I pinched her nose shut and ta-da, she blew through her mouth and got the thing to go out. Then miracles or miracles, she was able to create a vacuum again to blow out her candle. So that picture above with the candle going out is just amazing considering not 5 minutes before she could not do it, and then she could! She can now also drink from a straw (another vacuum thing). BRAVO Kaitlynn!

Going out on a limb

I went into work today for the first time in 6 months. Everyone was very happy to meet Kaitlynn and to see the changes in me. Yes, I still have straight hair and I have now lost 24 lbs! Kaitlynn won everyone over and they were all very surprised to see that she speaks fluently in french. I'm not 100% sure I should do this, but here is a pic of me and the family taken last weekend, as proof of how cute my kids are and that indeed my hair is straight (I kept saying to my mother that I couldn't believe I was having a great hair day, on the day of pictures!):


I had also promised earlier to talk about daycare... so here goes. We decided to split the daycare spot that Jacob currently holds into two part time spots. That way Jacob could spend two days a week with me, alone, and Kaitlynn could go and meet some new friends and socialize a bit more than she has been at home. This, my friends, was a stroke of genius! Jacob has been so much happier and more calm than I could possibly describe in words, while Kaitlynn who was languishing at home with no kids to play with during the day has just bubbled up with happiness. This has worked out nicely too, as it will be a slow transition for Kaitlynn into the daycare atmosphere and hopefully by August/September, she should be all ready for full time daycare when I go back to work.

I will post the pictures from the kids birthday parties... once I find the camera... I know its around here somewhere... yes, that would be kids, as Tristan and Kaitlynn (and Zorro) have the same birthday date (not year, obviously).

Mother's Day 2008

Oh my, oh my... was I spoiled this year. My kids were all very well behaved, pleasant and just a joy to be around. DH took cake of them all, kept his voice down (no mean feat this!) and we had a great day - started by getting up and opening presents, then off to brunch to my favorite restaurant (where the lady in charge asked, "So any new additions to the family this time?"... to which I responded yet again, "Yes, we have our daughter now."... she was just dumb founded... guess we don't get out there enough!), then off to shopping at my favorite kid's toy store (Oink Oink) where the kids got to choose 1 toy and 1 book each (call me crazy, but I just love letting them go at it in this store.. they have the coolest stuff), then home and nap time and I got to go to the driving range for a whole hour by myself and hit some balls (I'm getting much better at it too - the by myself bit is the biggy, I'm usually bringing someone under the age of 3 along with me), then back home to stay with the younger ones while DH brought the two older boys to Tristan's hockey game (they lost again, but only 10-6 this time, and again Tristan was the star of the game), amazing bbq steak and my favorite cheese cake. Just an all around lovely day!

My virtual twins, showing their purchases:
Jacob with a big school bus and Kaitlynn with her purple butterfly necklace and matching bracelet.

All smiles!

Jacob all smiles also, with a barrette in his hair - its Mickey, so its all right - and his school bus.
Just look at those curls!

This was Tristan's gift which just left me speechless. He made this - he knitted and then hand sowed it together to make a pot holder (but he prefers to wear it as a hat). I could not believe that he did this for me, such detail work from one who just loves to go fast!

Zach's gift of tulips and his art work for Mother's Day. He is on an animal kick these days - he made my mother a painting of a cow and I got a beautiful bird, with his lovely choice of colors! His imagination is just lovely to behold!

Jacob's contribution was a keychain and beautiful card. The photo of him, as he so proudly told me, was of him playing doctor. I laughed out loud when he told me this - I wondered if this was a premonition for the future, then I wondered where the other kids were (isn't 3 awfully young to be playing doctor with other's?)

Once again I was left speechless by hubby on this one. He bought me my very own ice cream maker... but not just any ice cream maker... this one has it own compressor, so I can just put the ingredients in, turn it on and presto I have ice cream in under 1 hour! I have been looking for one for oh, I would say, 6 months, but not like this one! Gourmet ice cream anyone? Now, I just have to find my cream (one that has nothing but cream in it, no fillers and no junk), and look out coffee ice cream, here I come!

Finally, DH found me the perfect gift to cap off the day: Chewie's clan unleashed! I got Chewbacca unleashed a couple of Mother's Days ago, and now I have the whole battle scene! Does DH know me or what?

Here we are!

Yes, she has her glasses. No biggy it seems to her, but I nearly broke down in tears in the store realizing how much her world had changed. She is a little wobbly sometimes, which I am told is normal, but she is now doing stairs with gusto (alternating feet on each stair, where before it was like a block of wood going up the stairs) and she is looking at stuff in a different way now.


As of May 5th, its been exactly 6 months since this little angel came into our lives. It was 6 months ago that this frightened little girl came forward to say Hello to me and to DH aka Papa. It has been a time of renewal for her and of significant change, and if you will allow I will recap it briefly:

1. Meeting Maman and Papa, and discovering China together
2. Flying overseas for 30 odd hours to meet her 3 brothers, Grammy Carol and her dog (poor Zorro and poor Kaitlynn)
3. Awful jetlag to recover from
4. New food, new smells... and what is that white stuff on the ground? Oh, and how to walk in snowsuits and winter boots (that was a biggy!)
5. Christmas!
6. New Years celebrations with her first playmate, Lily
7. Birthday parties and playdate parties
8. Chinese New Years celebrations with friends
9. Cleft palate repair and tubes in her ears
10. Vaccinations!
11. Speech therapy
12. Swimming lessons
13. Spring time, and no more boots... just sun hats and sun glasses and running shoes and bicycles, and hockey sticks
14. Daycare (more on this in another post)
15. Being able to see the world through rose colored glasses...

Yes, Kaitlynn, the world is all right even if it has changed quite a bit for you. Hopefully, the next 6 months won't be quite as life changing and we will be able to slow things down a bit for you to be able to catch your breath!

Oh boy

So I have had my moment, while driving back over the Champlain bridge this morning.

Kaitlynn and I went to her ophthalmologist appointment this morning as a result of some suspicions I had about her sight. I am quite proud of myself for following my gut. Consider please that I have no issues with my sight, I see far and near just fine and I have never needed glasses. I don't know what it is to not see, but I can empathize with those that need glasses and how frustrating it is to not see first thing in the morning or not be able to focus in the dark. I am also one to forget that someone indeed wears glasses because it becomes part of them, not a separate part of their entity (if that makes any sense).

I had no idea that my gut would pick up on one of my children not seeing properly. Kaitlynn would bump into things that she should really be able to see, or she would hesitate in the darkness of her room, stairs are still a challenge and watching tv involves a strange position of her head. Little things that sort of set off my gut and said... hmmmm, that's interesting... why is she doing that? Good thing I listened. She has astigmatism (her corneas are the shape of a football as opposed to round) and she is very myopic. Jeezzzze louise and a handbasket.

I know, I know, no big deal, so she needs glasses right? A lot of kids have glasses, I'm not reinventing the wheel. The moment, however, has made this a big deal for me: if we hadn't adopted Kaitlynn, she would be effectively deaf, blind and mute (tubes in her hears, glasses to see, and cleft repair so that she can talk to be understood). There you go... now, I have to go and have a good cry, cause its just too much to parse right now.