Inviting thoughts in?

Am I inviting thoughts into my kids' head if I ask them questions?  Is it leading?  Or am I just trying to keep it open and at the same time calm my internal fears?

I'm pretty much sure it's the latter.  I asked Kaelin, since she's the oldest and can convey her feelings to me better, what color she thinks she is.  We don't talk of race or color often, but every once in awhile I bring it up.  She said she's 'white'.  I compared my skin to hers and showed her that though our skin is pretty much the same color she is Asian, which isn't really a color, but race is sometimes likened to color.  I told her that when talking of skin color people will say Asians have 'yellow' skin.  She just shrugs and says she understands.  I only bring this up to make sure she's aware she is Asian and to be comfortable with it and embrace it.  I know it sounds silly to those outside adoption (interracial anyways), but I don't want her to wake up one day, look in the mirror and go 'oh crap I'm Asian' and be upset along with a multitude of other possible, relevant feelings.  And again  I know this sounds crazy that she's going to wake up one day and realize this, but a lot of Asian adoptees eventually view themselves as twinkies or bananas...yellow on the outside, white on the inside.  This isn't necessarily bad, but some adoptees perceive it negatively while others just see it as a reality of who they are or how they are viewed by others since they can never be truly Asian in culture.  We could try hard, but we're not Asian and we can replicate what it's like to grow up in a household with Asian parents.  We know this...so we embrace their culture and love it.

I asked her if anyone ever says anything to her about being Asian, Korean or if they just call her Chinese since most Asians are likened to Chinese by a lot of people.  She said no one says anything.  I even went out on a bit of a limb and asked her if anyone ever pulls at their eyes around her.  She didn't understand.  I showed her what some might do to her one day, hoping no one does, and told her that's not okay.  She can be a little naive and while naive is a good place to be sometimes, I was that way growing up, I don't want her to be naive in this area.  Not that I ever want my kids to pick every fight over every idiotic comment or connotation, but I do want them to be aware.  This sounds weird coming from a white mom, but when I was younger I had kids that pulled their eyes at me and made fun of me.  I guess partly my dark, dark eyes and then when I smile my eyes squint.  I know it impacted me some, then, because I used to look in the mirror of our hall bathroom and practice smiling without squinting so no one would say anything anymore.  When I was growing up blonde hair with almost black eyes was VERY different.  Now I see women like me more and more. and I was fine as I got older when I was younger, but when I was very young I definitely didn't like being different; as little as it was.

I know I'll never get this ever so complicated parenting thing right, but oh I try.  Moms think it's complicated to parent anyways and sometimes I try to deny that adoption made it more, not complicated, but intricate.  Adoption does put a different swing on things and while it sounds good, in theory, just to love them and bring them up, it won't work that way.  It's naive of me to think that curiosity will not be piqued out of any of my 3 younger kids on where they came from, who they came from and you can't just shut them down and tell them "it's in the past, don't worry about it".  I have no right to do that.  Just like it wouldn't be good for a child with a medical condition to not see a doctor, ignoring this piece of their life is not good for their mental health.  It doesn't have to consume them or us, but it has to out there, in the open and ready for discussion at any time.  And by bringing it up and asking my own questions I'm hopefully getting them to realize that I'm here to talk when they need to or want to.  Little by little, I get more questions out of Kaelin.  Just little questions, but I'd rather them be a little at a time so she has time to ponder and process all of 'her' information.

Voice of Love

All families who have adopted from Korea were asked to make short videos for the Voice of Love project. They are planning to send the videos to the South Korean government in an effort to allow them to hear from adoptive families and adoptees as to why adoption is important.  The Korean government has been reducing the numbers of children allowed for international adoption for some time.  I believe it's around 10% every year.  This doesn't mean there aren't any children that need adopted, it means they're trying to curb the numbers.  The only problem, is now the children are waiting longer and eventually, they could potentially end up without families at all.


This is our little video.

brotherly and sisterly love....????

Brian had the girls last night because he had to take them to religion class and pick them up. I stayed home with the 3 boys. This morning I told him I just had to tell him a funny story about the big boys from last night. He was like 'no, no, I have to tell you a funny story about the girls first'.

So he goes first and tells me how he was quizzing Chelsi on who was singing what song as he always does because she knows almost every artist. Kaelin told Chelsi that she needed to watch more CMT because she wasn't as good at it as she used to be. Chelsi sort of took offense and apparently waved her hands up in the air by her head and said 'well at least when someone asks me who sings a song I don't say Jason Aldean to everything'. BURN!  Note:  the hands went in the air waving just as she was saying 'Jason Aldean'....I could totally picture it.

I was sitting with the boys and a commercial came on for 'Hunger Games'.  I asked them if they had read the books and Cole said he had and Chase is reading one of them now.  So I asked what the story was about and Cole starts in telling me everything and right when he got to the part Chase was on, Chase sticks his fingers in his ears and starts yelling 'la, la, la, I can't hear you, la, la, la'.  I really was pretty funny because Cole just kept on going.

Those are the little moments I live for.....my entertainment.

It's Gotcha Day week

for my 2 favorite girls!  Kaelin's was Monday and Chelsi's was today.  While we don't really do anything major I had taken the girls to a free showing of Dolphin Tale on Saturday and then I took them for ice cream for their Gotcha Days since none of their brothers were with us anyways.  It was a really nice outing regardless of our very wet and stormy day....we lost power for 4 hours later that afternoon.  But, just more excuses to play games and pick up pizza since we couldn't cook.

It was a good movie, with good company and good ice cream, but since I have no idea how to get a photo from my phone (yeah I finally bought a real one late last year) to my blog I don't have a picture.  It's on facebook....that I figured out.

Love my girls and many more happy Gotcha Day memories.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda

I hate that.  I know something's coming, whatever it may be.  I plan it all in my head, how it's going to go and the conversation that will take place.  And after it's all said and done, I do nothing.  Everything I mean to say and do, I don't.  I'm always afraid of sounding dumb or saying something really wrong.

We had Cole's Make a Wish meeting tonight.  The two young ladies that came out were very nice.  They tried so hard to pry out of Cole his favorite anythings.  He wasn't very giving, but Cole...well that is Cole.  Outside of hunting and fishing, he doesn't have any major sports or hobbies.  No things he has to do or see.

They asked for his wishes and he told them Korea as #1 and Cabelas as #2.  Now that they're gone, I'm having all these panics.  Just on the very off chance he gets granted for us all to go to Korea, I'm nervous.  I mean really we were planning to go there one day, but I really didn't think it would ever happen, if it does.  I didn't think we'd have the money or Cole's heart surgery would come up instead, whatever.  I figured we'd end up not going.  So now that I'm even entertaining the idea of them granting it, I'm sort of freaking out.  I mean, Jaemin and all his freaking out issues on a plane for 13 hours?  I want to believe he'll do better than I think.  And what about Brian.  if we end up on a plan to Korea that's not got much room for him to stretch he just doesn't do well since his accident.  I'm sure I'm just nervous and totally underestimating them, but it still leaves me to worry.  I'm so great at having no control over a situation anyways.  Anyone who knows me knows this is when I freak out.  :)

I'm sure he won't get it, so I'll have to try to remember that and let myself destress.  I should have told her about Brian's issues and Jaemin's issues??

Breathing again.

Those 1 Time Diseases??

I'm starting to wonder how true getting certain things once in your lifetime really is.  Chase showed me some bumps on his chest and stomach last night and I realized he has a very light case of chicken pox.  They were mostly on his abdomen, a few on his arms, neck and jaw line.  Then, his legs were covered with poison ivy, so it's hard to say if there was anything there or not, but they seemed to pretty much stop at his waistline, from what I could tell.

I called the doctor to see where he was on his vaccine for it and they said he'd had one at 2 and then again at 5 when he entered kindergarten and he doesn't need anymore right now.  I told her I thought it looked like chicken pox and she said it was funny because just a few minutes before I called she had another mom call with a 12 year old boy (Chase will be 12 in a couple of months) that also seemed to have a case of light chicken pox.  Hmmmm....me thinks they need to rethink the way this vaccine is set up.  Starting to wonder if I should have his titres checked.

Then, as I was telling a girl at work about it we got onto the subject of Kaelin and how even though you're not supposed to be able or shouldn't get chicken pox after getting the vaccine or from the vaccine she got it just a few days after getting her vaccine at 1 years old.  Just a real light case.  Then, a couple years later, before kindergarten, Cole got it and she got it again, but worse...still not terrible.  How are you supposed to know if you're immune to it if you get it a couple of times and the vaccine?  So this same girl who got the vaccine for chicken pox and still managed to get chicken pox twice, also had fifths disease twice; confirmed by a doctor.  I even questioned the doctor when I took her last month and she looked at me funny and said "yeah, you're only supposed to be able to get it once".  So weird!

Make a Wish Meeting Soon

The Make a Wish folks called tonight to set up our first meeting.  They will come out later this week to talk to all the kids to find out what all the likes and dislikes are and to talk, in-depth, to Cole.  We got the packet from them late last week and went through it to see what to expect.  Since Cole's top wishes originally were a car to drive when he turns 16 or a hunting trip and they can no longer grant those he had to rethink.

The packet says they need 2 wishes in case their number 1 can't be accomplished.  Cole told us tonight that his #1 wish it for us all to go to Korea, to which I'm very proud of him for, but don't see how they can possibly accomplish that for a family of 7.  I asked him if he had a #2 he really wanted and he said no, not yet.  He's really been struggling with this.  I told him just to tell them the truth that he doesn't have a #2 that he really, really wants and then they can help him figure something out.

I asked him if he really wanted to go to Korea and he said 'yes'.  I didn't really know he'd thought that much about it. He never talks to us about it.  Teens are so non-verbal....like having a toddler again.  I guess this should be interesting to say the least.  And while I do know of a family of 7 that were granted the trip to Korea, I think they were just lucky enough they happened to find a donor willing to pay for the entire trip.  What are the chances of this chapter finding that person?  We'll see.  All I know is we had to have copies of our drivers licenses and the kids' birth certificates (all 5) ready for the meeting, so Brian did that Saturday.  Aren't you impressed?  Brian figured out how to use the scanner, so I wouldn't have to.