The Rehab Fairy

Breaking news today is that I've graduated from a walker to a quad can. I could probably have used a normal cane, but this one stands on its own. I don't have to worry about holding it all the time or it falling down to the ground like my umbrellas always do. This is big, b/c now I can hobble along and actually hold T's hand...like when we're walking in the daycare parking lot, or any other parking lot for that matter.

Of course, you-know-who once again thought one of my mobility devices is her own personal new toy. Though she's too short for it, that doesn't stop her for going around the house pretending to walk with it...or dance with it...or use it like a ninja stick.

Bubbles and Bikes

I actually made it outside today to the back yard without killing myself. Took the opportunity to practice walking and to snap picks of T while she played with bubbles and her bicycle. It was interesting to note that she's growing out her bicycle faster than she's growing out of her clothes. My lucky little girl is the exact opposite of her mom. She grows up, not out!

Guess who's probably going to get a bigger tricycle for xmas? Hmmm, should I make her sit on Santa's lap to get it?

Decisions, Decisions.

Home Sick

You wouldn't know it from this photo, but T is home sick today. She woke up, turned to me after getting dressed, and announced "My tummy hurts". She then flew off to the bathroom...twice...just in the nick of time...if you get my drift. Funny, but in over 2 years, this is my first dealing with this type of "incident". Longtime readers of our old babyjellybean site may well remember the TaylorBob PoopyPants potty training incident. Luckily, today was not nearly as bad. However, it is the first time we've been in this situation due to illness. Fever? no problem. Runny nose? I say Ha! Puke? Gross, but I have that down. This? Um, not so much. Luckily, Aunt Ceci gave some wise counsel at 7:00 a.m. this morning and reminded me of the BRAT diet. While normally I'd send T off to school in hopes that the incident had passed, with me not driving and my sister's work so far away, that's an impossibility. So, here we are and I'm playing hooky from rehab.

Meanwhile, check out the smile. I think I've discovered a new
method for taking a picture. No funny faces here! Why, you may ask? What trick did I use? Well, T's beloved Ariel was on Disney Channel as I snapped. While watching, she's all smiles. Do you see that faraway look in her eyes? A sure sign she's ignoring her poor Mom and watching the TV instead! Thank you, Ariel, otherwise, you'd all see a picture of a pout!

Testing....One, Two, Three

Here's my first successful attempt EVER to post a video to T's site! This video was taken right before Xmas of 2007. As you can see, T's doesn't have a real good relationship with the hairy, fat man. Anytime I mentioned going to see him, this is the reaction I got..."I don't like Santa. I don't like that man!" In fact, that's the reaction I still get to this day!

Since T's only experience with Santa was in Dec. 2006, when we attempted to put her on his lap while we were at a hotel in Vegas, I no longer push the idea. T took one look at that Santa, who was a cross between Santa and Merlin, and started screaming bloody murder. The only reason we even got a picture of it, was b/c Aunt Dot and I got in the picture, too, and I held T.

Who knows, perhaps Xmas 2008, which will be her 3rd Xmas and my 3rd opportunity for a Santa shot, will be the charm!

Still Peddling

Yep, she's still at it, but with a twist! T thought it would be a wonderful idea to wear my humongous sneakers. My crazy daughter has also taken to attempting to stand and balance on the seat of this stupid thing with NO hands, then jumping over to the chair!

No pics of that, as I'm too busy yelling at her to get down!

Rehab Report

I'm officially up and around! I'm going to rehab 3 times a week, and am putting weight on and walking on my bum foot. Albeit, very slowly and quite gingerly..and only in my new sneaks. Walking w/o shoes or less supportive shoes is next to impossible...at least for any distance over 10 feet. Turns out my calf and knee muscles, which weren't in the best shape to begin with along with every other muscle in my body, lost almost all strength. So, on top of getting my ankle working again, we have to work on the whole leg.

As I've mentioned before, my personal goal is to be up and around by 6/30, at the VERY latest. My rehab gal says we can start considering my driving after the end of next week. EVERYONE has cautioned me that this is the most dangerous period. When I think I can do more than I can, and subsequently reinjure the dumb thing. I am bound and determined that it will not happen to me!

Told Ya So! - The Blog Fairy

....wasn't it just a few short days ago that I stated that you shouldn't be surprised if you tuned into the site and saw the title slightly changed? While I was half-way kidding at the time, it seems to have become a self-fulfilling prophecy! I can in no way take credit for my new jazzed-up blog. I found the most wonderful woman on a few others' sites. She's my blog's Fairy God Mother. No, literally. I found her at http://blogfairytemplates.com/ .

She was very reasonable in her prices, and didn't mind me changing my mind a few times...and then a few more... or at least she never showed it! Within 24 hours, she had my blog shining and sparkling like a new glass of champagne. I highly recommend her. I'm going to hire her again, to change my little heart icons for halloween and xmas. Maybe birthday cakes for T's birthday. What fun is that?

Anyway, T and I have now officially made our home in the Land of Blog. Please stop by and comment as often as you like!

I'll Make a Man out of You

Some of you may be wondering about this song and why I chose it for the site. It's from Mulan and one of T's favorites. I've spoken before about how I like Mulan better than almost all other disney characters. I'm less than thrilled with Ariel, the mermaid, who basically runs away from home at 16 to go and live with her boyfriend. Conversely, the Mulan story is this...

Mulan's father is permanently injured due to fighting in a previous war. When the Huns invade imperial China, he is once again conscripted into service. Mulan, fearing for her father, disguises herself as a boy and takes his place ...an offense that if discovered would "dishonor" the imperial army and call for her death.

This song plays when Mulan is in army bootcamp. She's failing miserably as she's not as fast nor as strong as the men. However, she learns that if she uses her intellect, she can compete with and be just as good. As the story progresses, Mulan proceeds to save all of Imperial China and the Emporer himself from the Huns, using her cunning and wit. While the words to this song may seem odd on a little girl's blog, when the song is put into the context of the movie, it takes on new meaning. The moral of the story is that Mulan doesn't have to "become a man", she is just as good, if not better, as a woman.

Besides, T running around the house using her princess bat like a ninja warrior...all 27 pounds of her...singing "Mister, I'll make a man out of you" is a riot.

Cycling Fool

Yep, T is officially a cycling fool! Look at her! We could barely get her off the thing to make her take a bath. Take one guess as to where she headed off to immediately afterwards? Therefore, we had to institute a new rule: No Riding the Bicycle Naked! So, what does Miss Smarty Pants do?


She runs to get her towel to wear. Crap. I hate when she immediately finds loopholes to all my rules. Time to revise again. Now, the new rule is: No Riding the Bicycle without clothes...real clothes!

Sing it, Baby!

Thanks to a post on Loving China's Children that included directions, we have now achieved music!!!

Good Lord, just think of the possibilities!

So, here's the first selection of music that will play randomly:

• My First, My Last, My Everything...b/c its "our song", mine and Taylor's...and b/c I love Barry White
• All Star...the theme song from Shrek b/c its T's favorite song
• You've Got a Friend in Me...another of T's favorites...especially when I change the words to You've Got a Mom in Me!
• Over the Rainbow...b/c I fell in love with this song while waiting for my referral and reading the Gwenblog. I'd watch Karen's video of gotcha day and dream about my own baby, who I just knew was waiting for me somewhere over the rainbow. Boy do I miss that site.
• I'll Make a Man Out of You - from Mulan. T loves this song so much that she runs around the house with a stick, pretending to fight like Mulan does during this song. She actually knows all the words though can't carry a tune. Its really odd to hear her high little voice singing "I'll make a man out of you" or "You're unsuited for the rage of war, so pack up, go home , you're through". Crazy. Mom likes it b/c Donny Osmond, (my 2nd crush after my very first crush of Bobby Sherman), sings it.

My Little Energizer Bunny

Yep, still peddling...T just keeps going, and going, and going, and going...

The Price of Guilt

Well, we headed out today in search of a little swimming pool for T, given that it hot as hell in this swamp of a town. We were looking for one of those ones that is about 9ft in diameter, about 2 feet deep, and comes with a small pool pump and a cover. Since the store was out of pool covers, we didn't buy it and decided to wait. No need to waste all that water everytime she wants to swim. There's a water shortage going on in So. Fla, so I figured a clorination pump and a cover would do the trick.

Anyway, while in the store T made a beeline for this little machine-game, that was set up in the store as a display. Dot had heard about it from an IT guy she works with whose wife is a fitness instructor. We took it home and set it up. T's been on it for well over an hour pedaling her heart out. It hooks up to the TV, so its like your own personal arcade video game. She loves it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I admit it. Its clearly a present to assuage my guilty feelings. I feel bad that T is stuck in the house with her invalid mom, and that I can't take her to the park on the weekends to run around. I can't even take her outside to the swingset, as I can't walk on the uneven grass. So, T scored.

Survival and The Laws of Genetics

OK, having survived last night's blogging fiasco that had me frantically trying to redo my blog for about 6 hours, I think I've recovered. My cyber-friend Carol gave me a much needed cyber-slap in the face and has brought me out of my blogging-fog. No more tinkering with the site! I will mention, if anyone is interested, that I discovered http://www.bopmyspace.com/ . While the site has all kinds of graphics wholly inappropriate for my sweet T's site, if you can weed through the junk, they have some cute stuff. Perfect for the post with no picture b/c a certain toddler is not cooperating! Anyway, on to other things...like the laws of genetics.


One of the most exciting things about expecting a baby, whether through adoption or by other less mainstream ways like birth ;), is dreaming about what your baby will look like. I believe its even more exciting when you don't have the benefit of knowing the child's "genetic history" so to speak...those pesky dominant and recessive genes. While you can make a guess based upon the odds, you never know.

Take my mother as an example. I think she was slightly surprised with how my sister and I turned out. My mom had jet black hair and green eyes. She ended up having two little girls so blonde, our hair was basically white. Clearly, she had recessive blonde genes in her history, that came roaring to the forefront with my sis and me. She would often get annoyed b/c people would never assume she was our mother. Idiotic questions like, "Oh, you're her mom?", asked in a disbelieving tone, annoyed her to the point where she actually dyed her hair blonde in the 70's. Big mistake as the bleach and peroxide basically burned up her hair and scalp. Plus, her hair never was quite blonde, just an odd shade of orange. If I ever learn how to scan, I'll scan in the picture I have of her with us and blonde hair and post it here. Anyway, who knows? Perhaps b/c of my mom, I feel totally comfortable with a baby that looks absolutely nothing like me. You won't catch me dying my hair black anytime soon!

As I was waiting for my referral (a three-year wait due to my single status), I spent much of my time dreaming about this very subject and speaking to my friends about it. I recall mentioning that there is no predicting what color hair my baby would have: black, brown, red, and even blonde, or some mix thereof in between. I know many of my friends thought I was slightly nuts (and not necessarily b/c of just this subject). Even a friend of chinese descent would comment that no, your baby will most likely have black hair. Well, au contraire.....

As proof of my sanity, I invite everyone to follow along the blog-link at the right named, "Jillian Rose". Her new parents arrived in China yesterday, and will meet her and become a family on Monday. This child is a blonde chinese baby. She is NOT special needs and is NOT an albino, just a beautiful little baby girl who was born in China and who is busy flaunting all of the usual Asian stereotypes and laws of genetics with beauty and flair.

While all this is interesting, the real reason I'm following along is that I just enjoy reading these happy stories after a stressful day at work. These stories bring back sweet memories of my own trip to China. Hmm, maybe I'll make a separate section in the side-bar for traveling families. Often, these families just blog during their referral and travel time. So, in the future you may see links here being added and disppearing. As I discover some traveling families, I promise to share. Another family getting ready to travel on the right is the Williams family. I'm particularly excited to follow their trip, as their daughter is from T's same orphanage. Lastly, the family LilyKate and Eleanor are about to travel...and meet their twins! Exciting times all around!

Well, that's it for now. I'm vowing not to post again until tomorrow. BTW, T is extremely proud of her patriotic toes that Aunt Dot gave her while I was blogging last night.

p.s. If you haven't figured it out, this post was my practicing and adding photos throughout the post. I didn't have that capability with the babyjellybean site!

A Blog-tastrophe

Uh-oh. Danger Will Robbins!!!!! We've suffered a huge blog-tastrophe!!!!

Clearly, I got too big for my britches. I've been coveting thy neighbor's blog's pretty background layouts. While playing around, I found a site that I thought would enable me to put a custom background to the blog. Unfortunately, when I added "THE CODE", it deleted many of the bells and whistles that I had originally added to the sidebar. I'm now stuck going back and adding them again...and trying to figure out how I did it! Crap.

So, here's the new blogger tip of the day: Don't change your blog's template, or you'll lose everything you added to the side-bar. Live and learn.

I am a Blogaholic

Hi all,

As you may have noticed and as I've mentioned before, I've discovered "glitter graphics". I had lots of fun Friday night trying to figure them out, resize them, add text around them, and move them around the page. I actually attempted tinkering with "the code". In some cases, I was more successful than others.

I had wished to add a tiny Tink and tiny Ariel to the top left corner and bottom right corner of the title section. However, that is way beyond my skills. So, though I don't necessarily like where they are now, they're staying b/c as I was fooling around T spotted them and fell in love with their sparkle. Since I figure its her blog, we'll keep them for now.

I've always maintained that blogging is akin to online scrapbookking. Since I have lots of time on my hands stuck in the house, I find it just as addictive as scrapbookking, too, but without the mess. So, I fear I'm becoming a blog stalker.

My name is Carol XXXX, and I am a blogaholic!

They say admitting your addiction is the first step toward recovery. I can't help myself from going to someone's site and clicking on all their favorite sites, and snooping to see how others have designed their blogs and perhaps stealing an idea or two. That's how I found the glitter graphics, the site counters, the tickers, etc.

Anyway, I'm pleased with what we have here, although T tempts me on an almost hourly basis to change the title from "Mischief and Mermaids" to "Mischief and Meyham." Hmmm, I wonder what glitter graphic would symbolize "meyham". Anybody know how to make one of T's photos glitter?

Don't be surprised if you tune in one day to find it changed!

The Single, Working-Mom's Answer to Obento

Hi all,

If you in any way follow any of the blogs listed on the right, one of the most well-read ones is the Salsa in China site. The Salsa mom and her husband adopted from China and were blessed with twins. Like many others in the adoption cyber-community, I have been religiously following that blog from well-before they received their referral. Now, the girls are a riot and their mom always has something funny or helpful to say.

Anyway, the Salsa mom is a genious when it comes to getting her kids to eat. She has bought all kinds of helpful gadgets to make their meals literally look like works of art. She apparently buys the stuff mainly from a Japanese store and the stuff is called "Obento". She is truly an artist with food and has impressed all of her loyal readers with her creativity. I suspect we're all scrambling to copy her in some way.

Well, as a single, working-mom, I have neither the time nor energy to screw around making T's meals look like works of art. Hell, poor T is lucky that her meals are half-way edible. I have, though, borrowed some of the Salsa mom's ideas. I noticed that she serves her girls very small portions of a variety of things. So, I pulled out T's trusty old spongebob plate, and decided to copy that idea... sans the artistic bent. Voila! Here you have tonight's dinner...the working mom's answer to Obento! It consists of: 1/2 ham sandwich, rolled up cheese, applesauce, 2 chicken nuggets, and a few low-fat triscuits.

While T rarely eats all of any one thing on the plate, I'm happy to say that she is eating more when the food is served this way, than just one entre. Thank you, Salsa Mom for inspiring us all!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

http://bopmyspace.com

Well, it appears another holiday weekend is upon us. I'm left wondering how in the name of god its already June? Where did 1/2 the year go? As we go through our daily business, let's not forget to think about all persons who have served in the armed forces both currently and in the past. We have much to be grateful to them for.

On the rehab front, I've gone a couple times, and believe that its helping. I can now walk with the walker much better than before. I'm able to use my bum foot instead of carrying all my weight in my arms and upper body. Of course, I'm no where near giving up the chair yet. I still need it for long distances, I need it for speed as I'm slow as a tortoise with the walker, and also if I need to carry something. I can stand in the kitchen and make T her dinner, but to carry it to the table, I need the chair. My goal is to be back at 100% by the end of June. I've signed T up for remedial swim class, and it starts on June 30. That's my goal. Let's hope I make it!

Meanwhile, I can't tell you how proud I am to have added the sparkling, patriotic heart. I'm discovering that there's all kinds of websites that provide all kinds of snazzy graphics to use to spice up the old blog. I'm certain you'll be seeing lots in the future, as I learn and discover more and more. My biggest struggle at the moment is to figure out how to post a video. Seeing T live and in person...isn't that an exciting thought?

BUSTED!!

I rarely give T stickers, as she sticks them in the oddest places. ...on the furniture, the wall, the floor, etc.

Here, T clearly had been sneaking around and snooping where she shouldn't. She found some of my scrapbooking stickers and then went off to hide and happily stick them on herself and everything else in sight.

As I said, BUSTED!

Gidget Goes to Daycare

T's new school swimsuit came today. I tried to get her to pose as if she was on a surfboard, and this is the best shot I got. In T's book, if your hands are stretched out to your sides, you MUST be jumping up and down. My little surfergirl!

Every year, T's school has "waterplay" during the summer, and all the kids change into their suits and play with water outside. I thought this would be perfect. Covers her enough that she won't get too burned and only one piece. I didn't think her bikini was appropriate. Plus, it only cost 10.00 at CWD Kids. I'm thrilled b/c its now sold out, but similar ones are back up to 19.99. I can't help myself. After purchasing online, I continually check the site for a few weeks, checking to see if I got screwed and they discounted my item even more. Its been known to happen and I always kick myself! Hmm, is it wierd to be thrilled that the price is higher now? If I ever seek therapy for my shopping, I'll be sure to raise this issue!

Anyway, it's really cute when you go to pick her up at the end of the day at the daycare...they put all the tiny little water shoes lined up on the spokes of the fence to dry. 20 pairs of tiny shoes all lined up in a row. Too cute!

Exploring the Kinky Side of the Blog

Here's an interesting phenomenon, when I post from Picasa with a picture, I can put spaces between my paragraphs. When I post directly from the blogger, no spaces appear no matter what I try. That's why I used those odd colors in the post below. So, lets see if it happens again. If so, I'll need some technical advice on how to get the kink out.

Of course, I recognize that this could be a sign that I should always post a pic of my sweet T when I post to the blog... which I'm more than willing to do. Unfortunately, T sometimes doesn't cooperate with the whole camera thing and often makes idiotic faces just to screw up my picture and annoy her mother.

Also, I have a second kinky issue regarding the little section that says labels and comments after the post....how do I make that font smaller? There doesn't appear to be a separate font option to change that section. I don't like it so big. If the answers to these questions are particularly longwinded, please email me at carann65@aol.com. I'll be sure to give you appropriate kudos on the site if your solution works! What's annoying is that I suspect I could ask any 12 year old, and they'd immediately know the answers to all my kink questions. "Like, Duh!" Hell, I should have just asked T. As you can see, she's quite adept at the computer.

Update: Now look what happened! There are spaces between my paragraphs! Man, I think this blog is mocking me and otherwise screwing with me in general. I can't tell you how long I worked on the colorful post below, attempting to put damn spaces in it, to no avail. Can't figure out what I did wrong.

A Country In Mourning

Hi all,

This photo is the Chinese ruling party's show of mourning and respect to the thousands upon thousands of people killed or injured in their terrible earthquake of 2008. The Today Show said this morning that the deathtoll is up to 41,000 with 32,000 still missing. Our hearts go out to these people, as they try and pull their lives back together after this terrible tragedy.

(I swiped this photo from a fellow adoptive mom's site. I figure she wouldn't mind.)

Working out the kinks

Well, I'm glad you all have found the new site, despite my leading many of you astray with a bogus address! A big thanks to my friend Lori from FCC So.Fla. who has eagle eyes... she quickly spotted that I screwed up my own new website address in an invitation I sent out to subscribers of my old site.

I'm slowly getting the hang of this new blog stuff, but its much harder than my old babyjellybean site. It actually involves using real "computer code". Yikes! Am I showing my age too much if I admit that the last time I "wrote code" was in college using those stupid cards and Cobol? Hopefully, I'll work out the kinks soon. However, you may see some strange posts on here from time to time, as I play with the different options.

Meanwhile, T is getting sick. She's had a cough that won't go away for weeks now. We're taking her to the doc again for the cough on Thursday, as I'm not satisfied with the doc's opinion of a few weeks ago that nothing is wrong. I figure if nothing is wrong, the dumb cough would go away! It hasn't, therefore, the doc better figure out what's up. Hopefully, it won't be anything too bad.

I'm gonna wash that mom right out of my hair...

Guess who got a new haircut?

Welcome!

Hi Everybody!

Welcome to the new blog!!!

I've decided to start a new blog, and eventually close down the babyjellybeans site, after I get it copied onto a CD and portions printed into a book for T. This format is more complicated to use (for me), than the other site. So, I'm taking all constructive criticism...please let me know if the font is too small, or hard to read due to color, etc.

I thought it would be appropriate to start off the blog, with one of T's referral photos. Since the photo was the beginning of our family, I figure its only right that the photo is the beginning of the blog. One glimpse, and I fell head over heels in love!

So, here I go...I'm officially entering the Land of Blog.

Wish me luck! Hope you join us for the ride!