Category: Adoption

Though Little Brother is rapidly (remarkably!) picking up English, we have found it helpful to have a few important Mandarin words and phrases in our back pockets, to assist in communicating with him.   The following list is our Chinese vocabulary, in it’s (pathetic) entirety: Bu (“boo”) – no Bu Hao (“boo how”) – not…

Being home in Montana as a family of five, officially “post adoption,” has left me in a peaceful state of palpable relief. There’s a sense of calm I have now that I just haven’t had for the entire year and a half that we were actively working, fighting, to bring home our son. (Even before…

Little Brother continues to amaze us all, daily. He has made leaps and bounds- and had some minor setbacks- since arriving home in Montana. This is all very normal and to be expected. Little Brother’s attachment to me continues to grow stronger, which is wonderful, but- despite bonding quickly in China- he has started to…

Cocooning Survival Tactic #1: Sometimes, while cocooning, a Mama can go a wee bit stir-crazy. If you sense cabin fever creeping in, here’s what you do: Strap the kiddos into their carseats, divvy up the snacks, and drive around in circles. Bonus points for hitting the Starbuck’s drive-thru and/or enduring Angelina Ballerina on repeat in the…

Handsome Hubs headed back to work this morning, leaving me solo with our three precious offspring for the first time. You can go ahead and send me my official Mom Of Three badge now, since I am pleased to report that we all survived. It helps that we all got a good night of sleep,…

You guys. It’s like night of the living dead over here. I’m not sure what day or time it is currently– in fact, right now I’m not even sure which way is up. Our household averaged three hours of sleep last night due to severe jetlag. Come to find out going east to west is…

*The post in which I discover I’ve been singing the wrong lyrics to the Pet Shop Boys song for three decades. We thought our house was baby-proofed sufficiently. Turns out it was baby-proofed to baby girl standards, not baby boy standards. Our girls were active, but cautious, toddlers. Curious, but observant. Little Man is fearless, busy, and ambitious. He’s…

It’s two in the morning, and we’ve already had breakfast. Three kiddos with jetlag is no joke, they are all still on China time. I guess I’ll share the details of our journey home to Montana, as we arrived back safely yesterday afternoon. It took 24 grueling hours and three horrendous flights to get back,…