Family Fun

I should probably explain my pictures from Memorial Day. We just chilled and enjoyed the beautiful weather. My daughter and her family are here visiting, so we are really having fun with that.

Our family has become very Tico. We love having family all together and the more the merrier. In fact if the rest of the family wanted to live here, no problem. We have been known to have 11 people living in our little apartment at one time.

Funny story. When my daughter and her new hubby were moving into their apartment we went with them to sign papers. The landlord looked very sternly at my son-in-law, who is obviously Latino and gave strict orders that he was not to move his whole family into the little two bedroom apartment with them.

They all agreed to that and moved in. Fast forward two weeks, he gets deported. I told my daughter to hold onto the apartment because we needed a place to stay while our old trailer was being hauled off and our new modular being moved in.

A couple of months later we moved in with my daughter, at the moment there were only five of us. Two weeks later hubby and I left for China to pick up baby, making it six people in the two bedroom. A month later my 19 yr. old son moved in with us to get his life straightened out. Next month another son separated from his wife and moved in with us. Next came my youngest brother needing a place to park it for a short time.

Then my poor daughter and her baby came back from Hondurus. Man we were packed in like sardines and needless to say the landlord was not at all happy. Of course it took them about six months to get our home done and we lived in that little apartment the whole time! Crazy times.

Good times, good times!!!!

Knitting and Gratitude

First ever knitting project completed!!! Yeah and it was fun, and it was cool, and it was relatively cheap, and too bad we don't need more knitted articles living in Costa Rica! Though I am thinking the cool little slippers my mom always made us when we were kids would be good for Christmas. I will have to work on that one.

It is nice to feel a little love once in awhile from little ones. This one has always had a great gift for gratitude. I remember the first gift I bought for her upon our return from China. We went to a little store and I bought her a butterfly book. She just gave me the biggest smile and loved that book for years.

Teen Years

I have a theory. It may or may not be correct, but it is the only explanation I can think of for why I would have 7 children. That theory is that you forget. Yup you forget everything. They used to say you forget the pain of childbirth. Well I am telling you that you forget the pain of all things child related. Otherwise why would you "bring it on" again and again?

Take for instance teenagers. I will admit mine have been a ton of fun, and have outgrown most of their wild ways, but we still went through it. I mean to say, not that I have seen everything, but with six having been or being teens at the moment, it has been a wild ride. When I think about the memories or read my journal I am reminded and amazed that I kept signing up again and again!

I do say that my first was only 15 before we had number six, so that may explain lots of the having so many. Like the saying "it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and then it's just fun". That kind of sums up raising teens. (We have only lost one eye by the way, and she has adapted quite well by the way). Baby was the only one that we knew full well what we were getting into when we "had" her.

At the time we went to China to pick up baby we had one 19 yr. old in jail, unknown to us, and one 16 yr. old living with neighbors because he could not live with his father. Our oldest was married and had one child. Our second daughter had just gotten married, pg. and had her husband deported all in the last six months. That was just the first three! While we were in China numero 4 decided to lock himself in the closet and sing all night because his brother ate all his halloween candy. My pg. daughter was trying to deal with all this and not have her baby before we got home from China. She made it until 4 days after we returned and then baby was born! She was waiting for her aunt.

I am rambling and as I ramble it all comes back to me and I get the shivers and begin to go into fetal position! See what I mean, you forget everything. But as I chase my 16 yr. old around and try to keep track of her, and pray and chase some more, it is all coming back to me. And some say babies keep you awake at night? They do not have teenagers yet I can guarantee you that!

No Walmart for Me

I just read a post about investments and had to vent somewhere, good place here! Better than being negative Nancy on someone elses post. I am anti-war, anti-slave labor, and anti-Monsanto, and anti-big pharm. Add that up and I would have nothing to invest in as far as the U.S goes. Those are really the big investments in the U.S. and I would never give a penny of my money to any of them.

For that matter I refuse to shop at Wal-mart. I adopted a daughter from China, I know what it is like for people to live in poverty. I know that my daughter could be starting about now, at the age of six, to work in a button factory. Her parents could have taken her to the city and dropped her off at a factory where she would work 12 hour days and they would give her rice three times a day and a place to sleep. The thought obviously brings tears to my eyes!

Do people even think about this when they go to buy their "stuff?" There is a great Vegee Tales story about this by the way. It is about Madam Blueberry who just has to keep buying more stuff. Finally her house falls out of the tree because she has so much crap. How have the powers that be convinced us that we cannot live without that one more essential item?

There are so many people living with nothing, how can we really rationalize our wants into needs? Needs are shelter, food, water and human interaction. I think the whole world needs to stand back, re-evaluate and get rid of the crap!

I have heard the argument that we are creating jobs for them by buying their crap. If we do not buy the crap they can go home from the factories. They can stay with their families and raise food, which is what they used to do. Anymore in China they don't even prefer boys, girls can work in the factories as well as the boys. No one is there to work the land and raise food. So now they all work so they can buy food from the government. Sound familiar?

COSTA RICA DIA DE NEGRA

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Today was Dia de Negra at school. That would totally politically incorrect in the States I'm sure, but here it was celebrated. The really funny thing about this is there are no Negros at my daughters school. They all had fun dressing up as Negros and dancing though, and it was sure fun to watch them. My son-in-law was actually the darkest one there!


At the end of the dancing they did a little story about diversity. The little girl telling the story pulled a little black clay man out of a box. Then she said how the Negra was given arms and legs etc. and then she placed him in the chimney. Pretty soon from the back of the chimney a little dark skinned girl emerged!

Next she took a little white figure from the box and told about the blanca rasta that came out of the box. Then they put the figure once again in the chiimney and walla, the little whitest boy in class came out.

The last one really took the cake. They took a little yellow figurine out and guess who climbed out of the chimney at this point? You guessed it my baby! Now I was aware she was going to be in a skit at school about being Cheena. And I was aware that she was supposed to wear her regular clothes for this. What I was not aware of was that she was going to be represented by a little yellow figurine. In fact they called her "amarillo". There is definately a fine line between diversity and being thoughtful. At least Maleah was too young to get it. She thought it was great fun and never even saw the stupid yellow figurine.

READING PLEASURE

This is how I caught Dad putting baby to sleep! The plan is he is supposed to read her a story and put her to sleep. The plan according to her? She lets him read until he falls asleep and then she sneaks off to watch tunes!

It is bad when the kids get smarter than us. This at five, fifteen is going to be a real picnic especially at the rate the hearing, site and memory are going.

Yesterday she brought home from school a paper for us to fill out about her health. They had questions like, "did you have good prenatal care, when did she lift her head, when did she first respond to people" you know the usual questions.

In a way I hate it when we get those. It always proves to remind me that I don't know anything about her family or her health history. I really don't know if her biological mom was healthy, starved, or what her health was. Judging by her health now though I would say that her Mom was very healthy and took good care of herself.

She has never been sick or even had problems with her teeth, other than her brother knocking one out on the trampoline. Over all perfect health in other words.

Finally after looking over all the questions I just wrote that she was adopted from China at 13 months and we had no health history on her. I told them she is just perfect and gets along well with everyone and has no health problems.

That was really pushing my Spanish vocabulary. My older daughter suggested I write up a whole story based on the info we got on her referral, so I think I will put that together. I think it is important for her to have some sort of story about her first year of life on earth.

We do know where she was born, where she spent her first year, not specifics of course, but the rough outline and we can go from there. After all we all need a story right?

POOL TIME

We are back to the pool again. After taking a year off of the pool while Bekah had baby and he got old enough to enjoy the pool we are back. They even still remember us at the pool. The lady at the front desk commented on how much my grand daughter looked like her dad with her bangs cut.
I guess a half Honduran family, a Gringo family with a Cheena baby, and a son who is about two meters tall is not something that is quickly forgotten. That can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing.
The bad part is when they ask me why I have not learned Spanish yet! The good thing is they trust us and know we are not just here to try and take advantage and leave. That happens quite frequently and they keep an eye out for that type of expat.
When we go to the pool it is amazing to see so many gringos there. I keep forgetting it is high season and am surprised to see so many kids travelling here to Costa Rica for spring break I assume.
My son who moved here one week ago already has two jobs and is looking for an apartment. He loves it here and is pretty sure he will be staying for awhile. He did get a round-trip ticket and will be travelling back to the states to collect his stuff and return. He will be working at a couple of call centers. The starting wages there are much more than the average wage of 2.00 per hour here.
Part of the reason so many people want to learn english here is so that they can get jobs in the call centers. It boosts the whole economy and helps improve the standard of living as a whole here in Central America.
My goal in teaching everyone in the country English is because it is too hard for me to learn to speak Spanish!

THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS

I just love it when we meet people and I try to figure out the reason for meeting that particular person. This happened to us a few weeks ago. My daughter and her hubby had left our house late one night to get the bus for home with the babies. They were waiting and waiting. There was one other girl at the bus stop who looked Chinese. Rebekah asked her if she was Chinese and found out she spoke English. They hit it off well and have been talking and visiting since then.

Tonight they invited her family over when we were there. It was so wonderful to see this girl, who by the way is Taiwanese not Chinese, hit if off with our daughter. We are always concerned that she will not feel like there is anyone else in the world who looks like her. Now that she is becoming aware of the fact that she looks different it was great to see her connect with someone who looks like her.

We took a great picture of Maleah sitting with her family looking much more like them than she does like us! Now that I have spent a couple of years being a minority myself I can certainly relate to the great feeling when I see another blue eyed person walking around. Kind of takes the heat off, if you know what I mean.

Next week we will be going to their house for sushi, I will make sure to take lots of pictures and include them.

WATERMELON

When we travelled to China to adopt our daughter we had watermelon at every meal! We saw trucks of watermelon all over the country. They served it with breakfast, lunch and dinner actually it was always the dessert.

For the first year or so all our daughter would eat was fruit and yogurt and formula. She has branched out now and eats noodles and chicken, but that is about all she has added to her choices.

Here the watermelon is great year around and she continues to love the stuff. She and her dad will eat it at least once a day. We order it from our organic fruit guy and it is soooo sweet and juicy.

Just one of the things I am thankful for living in Costa Rica! Fresh organic fruit in season all year around, yummy!

15 YEAR OLDS AUGHHHHH!

You know how they try to tell you that myth that you will forget the pains of childbirth? We all know it is a myth, we just choose to go through it again. At any rate if it was true than it should also be true that we forget the joys of teenagers.

As my teen quickly approaches 15 this month I am starting to sweat and get the shivers. I think of all the experiences I have had with my 15 year olds and I think I do not want to do this again. Is there any way I can opt out of this phase? Maybe just put her in a barrel and feed her through a hole in the side, then let her out when she turns 18. That was Mark Twains idea by the way not mine!

My most vivid memory of 15 was with the above charmingly handsome big brother. Favorite brother by the way. It did not start out that way though. He was always the one that said he should have been an only child. Come to think of it that is what all 7 of them have thought.

When I decided I wanted another baby and adoption was the only option for us he threw a real hissy fit. He refused to even talk about it. Well it came time for the social worker to come over to the house and do the home study. If any of you have had that pleasure you can relate to the stress involved.

I asked Jake nicely to please put down his mohawk and tell the lady when she asked that yes he wanted a little sister. I have to say he drove a very hard bargain. One skateboard later he was very proudly saying that yes he wanted a baby sister.

When we returned home from China he would not even look at her or have anything to do with her, for about three days that is. About the third day we went to Taco Bell for some food. We were standing in line and I had to pay. I told Jake to hold the baby while I paid, he held her out in front of him like she was the baby from Monsters Inc. and went to sit down.

After I sat down she was standing by me holding on. He leaned over and said boo! to her very loudly. She did not even bat and eye and turned back to him and said boo! just as loud. He grabbed her up in his arms and is her favorite brother to this day. They were pretty much inseperable when we lived close. She still composes great letters to him and talks to him on the phone about 3 times a week.

I guess looking back on that story I can take courage and know that this too shall pass and after a few years we will be friends and be able to laugh about all the memories we are making. That is what life is all about after all.