Jane Brown Playshop

This weekend was very interesting. Jane Brown was in town. Jane Brown, mom to 8, is a social worker from Arizona along with other titles, who works a lot with children who were adopted. I went to a presentation she gave for parents of adopted children. She presented on, 'Adoption and the media.' Very interesting talk.

She also did several 'playshops' over the weekend for the children. Meikiina participated in a playshop on Saturday morning. She was very apprehensive about going, and told me several times after I signed up that she's not going to that play thing. She has a very hard time in groups and in new situations. She also has a hard time separating from me in unknown situations. When we arrived, Jane Brown did a quick activity together with the parents and children together. Then she had the parents raise their right hand and swear that we would not leave our children, and that if our child needed us they would come get us and we would be there likkety split. Meikiina happily gave me a hug and kiss and 'I love you' and went off with the group. It was a nice size group of kids, with 10 in the group. I heard Sunday's group had 25. Meikiina would have had a much harder time in the larger group. After a couple hours, Jane Brown brought the kids down and took the parents with her. She told us what topics had been discussed and what they had done together. She did not tell anyone anything specific that the kids had said. She said it's her job to talk to the kids and have them talk to her. It's the kids job to talk to their parents, and it's not Jane Brown's job to talk to their parents. I won't go into detail about what they did or talked about, as I feel that it's something that is for Meikiina alone (and for me if she ever wants to talk).

Meikiina did have a good time, because when we were walking out of the building, she said, "When is Jane Brown's next class?" I told her that this time she is having one more Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday. She said, "Well, why can't we go to the other one she is having today?"

I had a hard time deciding what I should do this weekend. I had paid (quite a sum of money) for this weekend several months ago. Then this week uncle Vern passed away. Oh, how I wanted to go to the funeral. I may have been able to switch Meikiina to Sunday, but she has a real hard time too, with too much activity in any one weekend. So what to do - go to the funeral Saturday up north, and playshop on Sunday and have a very anxious child all week long, or go to the playshop like we had scheduled on Saturday and not go to the funeral. I think I made the right decision. It was a very hard day (emotionally) for Meikiina. Lots of tough topics come up. I know it brought some thoughts. She woke up in the night scared. She kept telling me she's scared. I had to lay down with her and hold her to me all night.

I emailed Jane Brown to thank her and ask her for some feedback on something and she emailed me back. Here was a little bit of her email... "I am glad that your sweet daughter had a positive experience. She is very very dear-- expressive, curious, eager to share and take in all that others have to say." How could I not brag about that? :-)

Brynlee is 5!!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday Dear Brynlee!

Happy Birthday to you!

Wow, I can't believe Brynlee is 5! My baby. They are growing up so fast. I know, I say that too much, but they do grow up so fast...too fast? She says she had a good birthday. I think she did. Saturday we had 2 little girls over for a little party at home. They played a lot, mostly outside. Meikiina organized lots of games for them to play and handed out lots of candy prizes. Of course, that was fun for them. She wanted a 'My Little Pony' party again this year, but we couldn't find any 'My Little Pony' or any other theme for that matter. So she just had a birthday party theme, and was happy as could be with that. She's mostly a happy girl and pretty easy to please. After lots of playing we had cupcakes and ice cream and Brynlee opened her presents.

After presents we brought the 4 girls to Chuckie Cheese. What a hit that always is. They all played and played and played. The all got enough tokens that they were all tokened out by the time we left. We got going from there way too late. We had to use up all the tokens and then, my gosh, to pick out the prizes! That is a long drawn out affair. I was disappointed that I didn't remember to bring the camera. There would have been some very cute pictures. One of the little girls had not ever been there. She was in awe and had such big grins on her face. She spent quite a bit of time with me the first half of the time we were there. It is quite busy and noisy there. We dropped the girls off at their respective homes real late. Sorry moms, but thanks for letting us borrow your precious girls. They all had fun and made a wonderful party day for Brynlee.

A couple of cute stories...

We had her party on Saturday and she asked me, "Since we are having my party Saturday can I say I'm 5 that day and not wait til Monday til I can say I'm 5?" I told her that's fine. She can say she's 5 on Saturday if she wants. A couple of times between Saturday and Monday, Gregg said something to someone else about Brynlee being 4. She corrected him real quickly each time, "No! I'm 5 now!!"

Today she called me at work and asked me, "So now how many years til I start school?" I told her it's not years, it's only some months. So she asked me then, "How many days til I start?"

I always have their pictures taken around their birthdays and she remembered today that she hasn't had her picture taken and told me, "Mom! We didn't get my picture taken yet!" I answered that we hadn't yet. She said, "Well am I going to get to start school still?" She was very concerned that she wouldn't get to start school now, when we hadn't gotten her birthday picture taken yet.

Happy Birthday, baby! What a gift you've been. You've given us so much!

Brynlee's 5 Year Check & Easter Weekend

What a wonderfully fun and busy, but oh so relaxing, weekend we had. We spent the weekend with Gregg's sister, Jennifer, in W Des Moines, IA.

We started the weekend by leaving home at 7:15 a.m. Friday to make it for Brynlee's well check scheduled at 8:30. She did really good - passed all the little tests Dr. Benson did with her with no problems. She grew 2 3/4" and gained 3.2 pounds. She is right at 30th % for both height and weight. She also had to have 5 shots. She was not impressed with that even when they told her that all the kids starting kindergarten have to have lots of shots. But Dr. Benson gave her 5 stickers and she was very excited about that. The first thing she said was, "I'm going to give two of them to Meikiina." I was so pleased that she was so generous. There were lots of tears after the shots, but then we drove by McDonald's to get ice cream cones for being so brave to have so many shots.

Our next stop was to pick up James from the house he rents in Apple Valley. I had not seen it yet. It's a very nice house. We also got to meet his room mates. One is an Iraqi vet who has a white German Shepherd pup. It was fun to see his puppy, as it brought back memories of growing up with our German Shepherds, and all the puppies that Trixie had over the years. He was very quiet when we stopped on our way down. When we stopped on the way back he chattered quite a bit more to us. He was injured when the vehicle he was in was hit by an IED. He is 22 years old and has the look in his eyes of someone that is old way beyond his years. My heart went out to him.

We made it to Jennifer's about 4:00 and relaxed for the evening. Jennifer made a super meal for us and we played the game 'Apples to Apples', which I had heard about, but never played. It was fun! Oh, and I won. :-)

Saturday morning Jennifer bought me a gift of a massage. While I was there she and Gregg took the girls swimming at their gym. They had lots of fun, and I had a wonderfully relaxing hour long massage. Oh, my - if you ever have a chance to have a massage, don't pass up the opportunity. Several months ago I was having 20 minute massages that were concentrated on one part of me, usually my upper back and shoulders. They were awesome, but nothing beats an hour long massage. I have had them in the past, but it's been many years since I had one. I had them concentrate on my back and neck, but they did do my arms/hands, legs/feet, and head too. Oh, did I enjoy that.

Gregg spent time with his dad in the afternoon and I laid down with Brynlee. I knew it would be a late night so really wanted her to sleep, and she did. I did too. It felt good. The weather was so nice on Saturday. I didn't spend enough time outside, but did get a short walk in. I took Brynlee with me and she could see Meikiina jumping on the trampoline with Jennifer and she did not want to walk, so ended up going back pretty quickly. But the girls did get to spend quite a bit of time outside on the tramp and swingset. They have a BIG dog - a Newfoundland called Mai (pronounced May). She's 95 pounds right now and they are thinking she will gain 20 more pounds. She's pretty good and obedient, but is still a puppy so can get a little wild. I was looking over the fence in the back yard watching Meikiina jump on the tramp and I said to her, "Hi, Mei-Mei." Mai - all 95 pounds of her - came flying across the yard and jumped up on my back, with her big paws over my shoulders, so excited that I had called her. I had a hard time getting her off my back. Poor Brynlee is scared of any dog, and that dog is as tall as she is. Our bedroom is down in the basement and when she would go up alone she wouldn't know if the dog would be in the house or outside. Jennifer told Brynlee that she could just come to the top of the steps and call her to see if the dog was there. She did! She would get to the door and hollar, "JENNIFER!! IS THE DOG THERE?!?" Jennifer would so patiently answer her each time.

Saturday evening Jen & Irv treated Gregg and me to an experience that I'm sure we will never have again. We went to a musical (play). It was 3 hours and was great! We all really enjoyed it. For some reason, I thought Gregg would not really enjoy it, but he did! On our way there, Irv said Brynlee had commented to him, "Irv, why do you spoil us so much when we come here?" He got a kick out of that. It made him feel good, I could tell. And they do spoil us! We didn't get back there til almost 11:00 and the girls were not real happy with us, but it was so good for us to get out to do something like that.

Sunday we went to Irv's club for Easter brunch/lunch. It has the most amazing layout of food. They had set up a room special for us, along with another couple and their daughter, who are friends with Jen & Irv. All the workers at the club knew and greeted (very cordially) both Irv and their friend Guy, who are both to put it modestly, very well off. The food is very, very good. I had fruit and a breakfast type of fancy roll, bacon, ham, vegetables and au gratin potatoes (super good), and for dessert - strawberry/rhubarb crisp with whipped cream. I'm sure there was more. I could tell Meikiina's favorite was the au gratin potatoes, as she went back several times for them. I think Brynlee's favorite was the bacon. Oh, they also loved the chocolate fountain where they could dip strawberries. I think what Meikiina was most excited about was the raspberries. When we go out walking and biking at just the right time, we can pick them along the paths in our woods. She brought one special for me. If there is something missing - like chicken tenders or marshmallows - you just ask and they bring them to the table. Meikiina was so cute. She usually has such a hard time in groups, and this a big room that has lots of tables of people in it. I was very surprised when she told me that she wants to go back for more and then said she can just go by herself. Then when Brynlee wanted more, Meikiina told me that she can bring her and help her get what she needs. I let them go and then went too, to get myself something just so I could see how they did. She was so good with Bryn, she was very patiently telling her what each type of fruit was and did a very good job of helping her. I was so proud of her and I think she felt really proud too. The big boys have an eating contest to see who can eat the most. They can eat a lot! After we are done eating, the kids get to go see the bunny and sit with him for pictures. They then colored eggs and got a box with treats in it.

After we were all done at the club, back we went to Jen's house. Irv had been up at the crack of dawn hiding eggs for all the kids, big and little. This year the little kids, the 3 girls, had a scavenger hunt. They each got a card with a certain number of eggs of each color that they had to find. It looked so cute to see them watching their cards, even Brynlee, to make sure they got the right amount of eggs of each color. They got lots of treats and each of them found 3 gold $1 coins in their eggs. When they got back in they found baskets that Easter Bunny Jen had filled with all kinds of toys and treats. The boys eggs were quite a bit harder to find. They each got one egg that had a $5o bill in it and another smaller egg that had something else in it, so they had to work pretty hard to find theirs. Once again the egg hunt was a big hit and so much fun. Oh, the girls also each got a gift card to Dairy Queen from the mom of the other little girl that was there. The little girl is Irv & Jen's god-daughter and is quite special to them. We don't go to the DQ very often so the girls were pretty excited about that.

And being as all good fun must come to an end eventually, after the hunt sadly we had to start packing up so we could head home. We got going a little after 3:30 and got home about 9:15. It was sad to leave. We always have such a good time with them and it really is a relaxing trip each time. When we got back we discovered the bunny had been here too so the girls had to hunt for their baskets and all the eggs the bunny had hidden in the house. Good thing they slept a long time in the car on the way back because they did not get to bed real early. Also, Meikiina got to start school 2 hours late on Monday. It was perfect.

So ends a wonderful, relaxing, and perfect weekend. And now back to real life.

Easter Egg Hunt

This past weekend was our favorite local annual Easter egg hunt. We almost missed it. I had been watching for it in the paper, but never did see it. Sister Joni called and told me that it was that morning. The girls have fun and they are always excited to have the treats when it's all over. Even though it's fun for her, Meikiina is so scared to do things like this. Crowds of people are always so hard on her and hard for her. It breaks my heart when I watch her. She so wants to do something like this, but still it's so hard for her to do. You can see the tug-of-war in her. She might start acting out and I know that she is wanting to go, but is thinking about how scary it's going to be for her.

They do have the kids broken into age groups, but there are still lots of kids in each group. But there are soooo many eggs all the kids get lots of treats. It doesn't matter what the weather is there are lots of kids. We've seen warm sun, rain, and snow, and the crowd was always just as big. This year was not too bad. It wasn't really warm, but we did not freeze.

Phone calls and big words..

Often I get phone calls at work from Brynlee. She always wants to know what I'm having for lunch. Today when I asked her what she's having for lunch, she told me she's having Chimichangas. She explained further, "They are actually Chimichangas, but they're not the spicy kind so we call them Britos (burritos)." She always makes me grin. One other day when she asked, I was having mushroom soup. That evening she said, "Meikiina, did you know they actually make mushroom soup?!" She does not care for mushrooms.

When Brynlee calls me at work she usually doesn't want to talk long. When she first started calling me at work she would say a few words and then would abruptly say bye. I told her that manners tells us that we need to say goodbye in a little more polite way. Now she asks me, "Are you gonna have to go now?"

Right now Meikiina's favorite word is apparently. She uses it alot! I love listening to her talk. She uses big words a lot and sounds so grown up.