Unlike her older sisters, Claire has a thing for soda. While it is strictly milk or juice at mealtimes, but she will try to steal a swig from an open can when she spots one.
As she cannot open a soda can with her three-year-old fingers, she will occasionally fetch a can from the fridge spontaneously and offer it to me to drink. Then, after I’ve opened the can, she’ll query “Share soda?”
This evening she spotted an open can on the kitchen counter. Chris had left a half-full soda can out.
While she downed what remained of the Sparkling Black Cherry Citrus Fresca, I remarked, “Claire, you’re my drinking buddy.”
She responded with “You my burpin’ buddy.”
Saving Face is a 1:37 minute romantic comedy, where the couple’s pivotal reconcilation speech occurs at 1:29:15 into the movie.
Why do these timestamps stick in my brain?
Because the DVD from Netflix goes bad on me at 1:29:01.
I mentioned last September that BamBam had cancer would eventually need to be put to sleep.
Well today that time had come. The growth on the back of his neck had grown to the side of his head and, over the past few days, it had started having open sores. After dinner, we had a tearful talk with the girls that we would take him to the vet’s that night. Claire was oblivious to what was about to happen. We took a few last pictures and headed to the vet’s.
We were ushered to a private room at the office. Claire took her shoes off and rolled around on the Oriental carpet that was covered in animal hair. Still oblivious to everything.
The nurse took modeling clay impressions of BamBam’s paw so that the girls would have something tangible to remember him by.
The vet came into the room to console the girls, including Chris. She talked about ending the cat’s pain. Claire was occupied with a dog poster. The vet also mentioned that our house, without BamBam, would feel empty for awhile.
Marissa, pointing to Claire crawling around in front of the sofa, deadpanned, “not with her around.”
Bam Bam's paw print
Just when I though it couldn’t get more screwed up…
About two years ago, I wrote a blog entry about a gentleman who does research for parents of adopted Chinese girls. He did some work for us. I found out last week that he has a blog as well.
In the local paper last week, there was a Reuters article on child trafficking rings in China. Like most adoptive parents of Chinese girls, this made no sense to me. The vast majority of the girls in Chinese orphanages never get adopted so it seemed logical that with such a supply, the demand for blackmarket children would be non-existent.
Well our researcher explained the situation in an excellent post. I encourage everyone to read it.
Orphanage directors are now so dependent on fees from foreign adoptive parents, that the youngest and healthiest babies go overseas. Orphanages compete with each other for those dollars, and if an orphanage wants to have more “desirable” children available for foreign adoption, some directors find nefarious ways of obtaining them.
To the locals who want to adopt, those same fees that foreigners have no problem paying are prohibitive and the only alternative is to accept older or special needs children. With a black market, few Chinese couples are willing to adopt legally.
Meanwhile the population of older, hard-to-place children continues to grow.
When we were adopting Claire, we asked the Fuling director how many Chinese couples adopted from her orphanage.
She laughed and said, “None.”
Katie’s friend Maggie invited her to spend the night at her house. We thought Marissa would be jealous until her friend Maddie invited her over for a lunchtime playdate to following day.
The topic at the dinner table tonight was their budding social calendar and dining away from home.
Katie and Maggie had chocolate pancakes with syrup for breakfast in bed. Marissa reported that her lunch with Maddie was almost the same as the “Johnny Marzetti” we were having for dinner.
Marissa said it was the same except it wasn’t bowtie pasta.
It was “spaghetti with margarita sauce.”
I suppose that would be one way of keeping a young guest happy.
Marissa turns 8 next Saturday.
At least that’s how old I thought she was going to be before she uttered this while getting dressed this morning:
“I cannot find anything that interests me in the closet.”
The stars aligned.
I got my wife a birthday present last month and …
I found out two months afterward that there was a rebate and …
I had ordered the correct model for the rebate and …
I had ordered it during the valid rebate dates and …
I had kept the sales receipt and …
I had kept the box with the UPC code on it.
This never happens.
Over the past year, I’ve spent $3001.24 on stuff that had rebates (from bottle of listerine to a laptop). The rebates have totalled $899.82. What’s more is I didn’t get any rebate rejection letters in 2005!
This morning, it was back to school for everyone. And while Marissa and Katie were more than willing to head back to Scioto Darby Elementary with their new Tamagotchis in hand, Claire was reluctant to get dressed this morning.
Normally Chris gets Claire dressed and fed while I’m getting ready, but by the time I was ready to leave, Claire was on the living room still in her pajama tops (with no pants on). She was quite obstinate. Only the threat to take her half-naked to the daycare learning center got her to acquiesce to playclothes.
When we got there. She was still a little frumpy. As it had been about a week since she had been in, I put a clean pillow and blanket in her cubby hole and picked up several papers left over from the holidays. One of them announced the special days in January.
Today, was “Pajama’s and Teddy Bear” day. She was the only one not in pajamas.
The Tooth Fairy fell for this last night:
Letter to tooth fairy
Perhaps she could help pay for college if she put this note under her pillow every night.